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THE DAY'S WORK 

By 
FORBES LINDSAY 





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THE DAY'S WORK 

AND 

OTHER MATTERS OF MORE OR 

LESS INTEREST TO THE 

LIFE INSURANCE 

MAN 



BY 

FORBES LINDSAY 



PRICE $2.00 



Copyright 1920, by Forbe* Lindsay 



TIMES-MIRROR PRINTING AND BINDING HOUSE 

LOS ANGELES. CALIF. 

1920 






SUBJECT INDEX 

Page 

Taking One's Measure 5 

Using Men 8 

How to Make Progress 11 

"Waste of Energy 15 

Pood for Reflection 18 

The Mental Hazard of the Close 21 

Sheer Grit 23 

The Viewpoint 26 

The Insurance Premium 29 

Educate the Beneficiary 31 

Going After Big Business 33 

Sustaining Interest 35 

Side Issues 37 

Golf Maxims for the Life Insurance Agent 39 

Waste of Words , 41 

Waste of Time 44 

Personal Efficiency 47 

Have You Got It in You? 49 

Be a Better Boss 50 

Learning Your Business 56 

Self -Improvement 59 

Luck 61 

The Pointed Policy Presentation 64 

Will Power 67 

Failure to Make Use of Policyholders 69 

Set Up a Goal 72 

Despatching 72 

The Premium is not a Gauge of Cost 74 

No Mystery About It 75 

The Use of Time 76 

The New Year 79 

The Value of Time 80 

Competition 83 

Steady Effort 87 

Agency Growth 89 

The Mental Attitude 91 

Curing Common Failings 92 

Plans 96 

Personal Efficiency and Salesmanship , „ 98 

Preparation 102 

The Fallacy of Figures 105 

What It Is and What It Does 108 

Contents of the Course 111 



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THE DAY'S WORK 

The working hours of the day define the unit of effort. 
You cannot do more than one day's work between morning 
and night. You should not do less. 

The most difficult tasks call for no more than this — one 
day's work at a time. Do that with all your might. Con- 
centrate upon the present duties. Forget yesterday and do 
not anticipate tomorrow. 

Everything is possible to the man who makes the most 
of each hour in its passage. Jealously watch the progress 
of time. See that none of it escapes without paying full 
tribute to you. Turn every minute to some account. 

There is just one way of avoiding waste of time. That is 
keeping your business constantly in the forefront of your 
mind. 

The secret of securing the utmost results in a given time 
is a definite plan — having a clear-cut idea of what you 
want to do and how you intend to do it. 

Have your day's work mapped out on the previous evening. 
Set yourself more to do than you are likely to accomplish 
in the time at your disposal. Start the day with a determina- 
tion to strive hard and earnestly until its close. Let noth- 
ing divert you from this purpose. 

The utmost demand that you will ordinarily be called 
upon to meet is seven hours of honest work at a stretch. 
Take care of the days and the months will take care of 
themselves. 

There is a big idea in this last paragraph. I would like to 
impress it on you. But instead of continuing in the homi- 
letic strain, let me give you a litle fable. 



The brand new yard-engine had just come into the round- 
house from its first day's work. It was gritty, sweaty and 
blistered, and it smelt evilly. The little loco was making a 
great fuss, panting and groaning, whilst every few minutes 
a tremor ran through its frame. 

"What's the matter with you, young 'un, ' ' growled the 
great Mogul, in the next stall. ' ' G-ot a hot box, or a strained 
joint t" 

' ' Not at all, not at all, ' ' snapped Yardy testily, ' ' I am per- 
fectly alright mechanically, — but I must confess to a dis- 
turbance in my thinktank. Yes, I'm agitated and who 
wouldn't be. Probably you don't think much. They say 
• that big bodies are generally deficient in — but let me tell 
you. At the end of today's work I began to figure on what 
is before me and the stupendousness of it simply staggered 
me. It made my brain whirl. It made me hot with indig- 
nation. It's a shameful outrage — that it is. I think we 
fellows ought to blow up in protest. Just think! If 
I should be taken out for eight hours of only two hundred 
days in the year and run no more than half the time, my 
piston will strike thirty-seven billions, four hundred millions, 
sixty — ' ' 

' ' Oh, forget it ! " thundered the Mogul, in his deepest 
bass. "Why, when I'm pulling the fast freight over the 
division my drivers make twice as many revolutions to 
the hour as yours would if you were doing your darndest, 
but I don't waste any time or steam in calculations of what 
I'm going to do. Let me tell you something, kid! You are 
never going to be called on to do more than one day's work 
at a time. Do it, — and don't worry about what's coming 
after. Now, quit your groaning and let us rest." 

Moral. — You have got strength for today's duties and you 
will find strength for tomorrow's — when it comes. 

4 



TAKING ONE'S MEASURE. 

It is no exaggeration to say that the typical person knows 
more about his automobile than he does about himself. The 
majority of men have but an imperfect idea of their own 
characters, temperaments, dispositions and powers — the ele- 
ments that constitute latent capacity. As a consequence, 
they go through life employing but a small proportion of the 
faculties at their command and sometimes neglecting the 
most valuable of them. It is as though one should devote a 
life-time of energetic labor to raising potatoes on a tract 
of land, beneath which lay a rich vein of gold. 

"How is one to discover his powers V it may be asked. 
By self -analysis and self -test, — that is to say, by study of 
his mental qualities and by practical trial of his ability. 
Men of strong initiative — men who are constantly setting 
for themselves new and bigger tasks — find out by actual ex- 
perience what they can do. And, as increased accomplish- 
ment begets increased confidence and develops increased 
power, such men are ever capable of doing more and greater 
things. 

It is safe to say that you have no conception of your 
latent capacity. It is practically certain that you are cap- 
able of much greater accomplishment than you have ever 
realized. It is possible that you have undreamed of powers 
at your command. One honest, whole-hearted effort — one 
try-out, with all the energy that you can summon will prove 
the most valuable experience in self-knowledge and probably 
exert a lasting influence over your entire life. 

One of the most successful life insurance salesmen in the 
States today, worked for seven years with ordinary dili- 
gence, but with uot much better than ordinary results. All 
this time he possessed dormant possibilities that were quite 
unsuspected, until circumstances stimulated him to make 
an intense effort. Suddenly, a series of misfortunes befell 

5 



him of such serious nature that most men would have been 
crushed under them. On this man they had the effect of 
arousing his energies and determination. 

He began to work with a physical and mental energy 
that he had not believed himself capable of exerting. With 
the stimulation of his mind, latent faculties developed which 
he had been unconscious of possessing. In six months he 
had written more business than eighteen months had ever 
yielded to him before, and completely overcome the diffi- 
culties which had threatened to overcome himself and his 
family. But — what was of a greater consequence — in the 
process he had found himself, so that ever since he has been 
a different and a bigger man. Fifteen years have elapsed 
since this man discovered his latent capacity. In no single 
year has he paid for less than $600,000 of individual busi- 
ness and in iive years he has passed the million-dollar mark. 
Up to the time of his awakening, his greatest production in 
any year had been $180,000. Mind you, there was no essen- 
tial change in this man. What he did under the stress of a 
strong incentive, he had been capable of doing any time in 
those previous seven years. It was as though the potato 
farmer should suddenly discover the deposit of gold beneath 
his feet. From that time he would get gold out of land that 
had previously produced no more than potatoes. It would 
only be a matter of exploiting a resource which had existed 
all the time. 

The world is full of potentially great men who never de- 
velop beyond mediocrity. Men who have grown great owe 
their rise to the discovery of their latent powers and to hav- 
ing learned that nothing is impossible. The trouble with 
most of us is that we are too ready to accept difficulties as 
impossibilities. We measure our capacity by our past 
achievement and, because we have never done a certain 
thing, think that we can not do it. 

6 



There was something more than humor in the reply of the 
Irishman to the enquiry whether he could play the piano. "I 
don't know. " he said, "I never tried. " We don't know 
what we can do, because we don't try. We are ever prone 
to discount our ability. There isn't one of us, probably, 
living up to sixty per cent, of his potential efficiency. We 
are hampered by auto-paralysis, engendered by fear of 
failure. The man who never failed, never attempted any- 
thing worth while. It is certain that he never could have 
extended himself to the utmost. 'Tis better to have tried 
and failed, than never to have tried at all. 

About two years ago, an insurance journal contained an 
account of the manner in which an agent deliberately set 
about seeing what he could do. He taxed himself with the 
severe task of securing fifty applications in one hundred 
days — and succeeded. It was hard work, but it developed 
his powers, increased his confidence and stimulated him to 
essay a doubly difficult undertaking. A few weeks later 
the magazines recorded the fact that the same agent had 
accomplished the fine feat of closing fifty cases in fifty con- 
secutive days. 

The most significant point in all this lies in the fact that 
the agent in question had previously given no promise of 
such splendid ability and would have laughed at anyone who 
might have proposed to him either of the performances which 
he afterwards carried out. He approached the former effort 
in far from a confident fame of mind, but with the determina- 
tion that he would accomplish his object, if it was in him to 
do so. Even though he had failed, he must have benefitted 
greatly by the endeavor. As it is, he will, in the future, ap- 
proach any undertaking with a sense of competency and con- 
fidence that he never enjoyed before. 

Don't let your ambition nor your enterprise be limited by 
what you are doing or what you have done. That is, by no 

7 



means, a reliable criterion of what you can do. No matter 
how modest your past achievements, you can't gauge your 
future possibilities until you have made a really big effort, 
bringing all your faculties and latent powers to bear upon 
it. You may never have paid for $100,000 of business in 
twelve months, and yet have the dormant capacity for writ- 
ing half a million every year. The probabilities are that 
hundreds of agents who don't do as much in a year, could 
write fifty applications in as many days. Why have they 
never done it? Because THEY HAVE NEVER TRIED. 

If you are unaccustomed to intense effort, I shall not sug- 
gest that you attempt anything extremely difficult, at the 
outset. Begin with a task that will tax your energy and 
ability severely, but one which it is reasonably certain you 
can accomplish, provided you put all of yourself into it. For 
example, ascertain your largest month's production, elimi- 
nating extraordinary features, such as an unusually big case, 
and undertake to exceed it by fifty per cent. When you 
have succeeded, as you will undoubtedly, if you go about it 
rightly, you will find yourself with enhanced ambition, sup- 
ported by increased sense of power. 

USING MEN. 

Have you ever considered the extent to which you are 
indebted to others for any success which you may achieve? 
No matter how talented you may be, no matter how "inde- 
pendent,' ' you can't accomplish much without the aid of 
your fellow-men. 

It is so with everybody. The merchant, the banker, the 
minister, the physician, the politician, — each one of them 
mounts the ladder of life with the helping hands of men 
above or the obliging boost of the men below. A conspicuous 
factor in all highly successful lives is the friendship and in- 
fluence of at least one powerful person. 



Success gained in this way is not luck nor the result of 
favoritism. It is fairly earned. The man picked out for 
such aid is usually one who displays exceptional ability. 
But very often a man of mediocre parts is carried along by 
useful friends on account of his attractive personality. 

You have seen the surgeon of ordinary skill reach the 
head of his profession on the strength of social qualities. 
Or the commonplace attorney mount to the bench by reason 
of being a genial associate. Or the poor theologian become 
a tenant of the bishop 's palace because of his talent as an 
after-dinner speaker. 

To come down to our own business. We all know Life 
Insurance salesmen of no special ability who enjoy exten- 
sive patronage and reap large incomes. Why? Because 
they make themselves liked, and the personal equation is a 
potent factor in any business, — particularly in ours. 

We sometimes speak of " magnetism " as though it were 
a mysterious quality with which a favored few are endowed 
and of which the great majority are deprived. It isn't 
anything of the sort. Magnetism is simply the quality which 
attracts and interests others. True, a fortunate few come by 
it naturally. But anyone may acquire it. 

There isn't anything difficult or complex about the method 
of acquisition either. You present a smiling, friendly atti- 
tude toward me and display an interest in my welfare and 
I shall be magnetized, that is, drawn to you. 

The truly and powerfully magnetic person has that sympa- 
thetic, friendly and interested feeling for all his fellow-be- 
ings. That too may be cultivated. With effort it may be 
made an habitual condition. 

It is the most effective quality you can possess — that of 
magnetism. It will promote your success more surely than 
talents and knowledge or skill. And that because — to go 
back to the point from which we started — whatever success 



you may achieve must be largely dependent on the good 
will and assistance of your fellow-men. 

From what I have said you may gather the full signif- 
icance of the oft-repeated statement that "a life insurance 
agent's chief asset is large acquaintance," — that is to say, 
a great number of persons who know him and like him. 
If his acquaintances don't think well of him, the fewer of 
them he has, the better. 

Now, in seeking to create that kind of asset don't make 
the mistake of restricting your attention to men of stand- 
ing, who can obviously do you good. Be generous with your 
geniality, your courtesy, and your sympathy. Extend them 
to the car conductor, the elevator man, the office boy, — to 
everyone with whom you come in contact. 

This is not only genuine magnetism, but it is also good 
policy. You can never tell when some humble being may 
be in a position to render you a valuable service. Further- 
more, the man of affairs cannot fail to be favorably im- 
pressed by the fact that you are universally well spoken of. 

Few of us take advantage of the amount of help that 
is available to us. Every normal being derives pleasure from 
serving another. It is the easiest thing possible to gain a 
man's assistance, especially if what you want involves no 
serious trouble or sacrifice. And that is the case with most 
of the services that you desire. 

A tactful request will secure a list of Prospects or cards of 
introduction from ninety per cent, of your acquaintances. 
But that is only a beginning. When you obtain results from 
such aid, be sure to inform your friend and renew your 
thanks. He will experience self-gratification from having 
been the instrument of your success and will be more than 
ever willing to help you. In this manner you may make a 
number of your friends active and enthusiastic "boosters." 

10 



Many of the largest writers get the bulk of their business 
through sueh methods. 

But whilst you look to others for aid, be ready to extend 
the helping hand yourself. Do whatever you can for another, 
whenever opportunity occurs, and that without calculating 
the prospect of return. Give some of your time to civic and 
social movements in your community. No investment that 
you can make will yield such rich profits as gratuitous 
service, cheerfully and efficiently rendered. 

In conclusion, let me mention a danger which often proves 
a pitfall. Some agents are so agreeable and interesting 
that their calls are usually welcomed. This is well so long as 
the agent keeps his business uppermost in mind and em- 
ploys his magnetic qualities as an entering wedge. But 
when he allows his calls to degenerate into social visits, 
his attractiveness is a detriment rather than an advantage. 
See to it then, that however pleasant your reception, when- 
ever you approach a man on business, the interview is kept 
under your control and your object is held constantly in the 
forefront of your mind. 

HOW TO MAKE PEOGEESS. 

There is no such state as stagnation in this life. You 
must go forward or backward. Unfortunately, among Life 
Insurance Agents, many who are capable of much greater 
performance, reach the peak of their achievement at an early 
stage of their careers and thereafter retrograde. This is 
simply and solely because they neglect self-improvement. 
The average man in our business learns more about it in the 
first eighteen months than in all after time and attains 
the top-notch of his production about the fifth or sixth year. 
Then, if he has given no attention to increase of efficiency, 
he gradually becomes stale, his interest wanes and he de- 
generates into that most pathetic spectacle, — a " has-been.' ' 

11 



If you were a physician, an engineer or a merchant, you 
would be compelled to constantly increase your vocational 
knowledge and ability in order to maintain success. You 
could not hold your place in the procession otherwise. The 
necessity for keeping pace with the developments of one's 
business and for increasing one's practical ability is no less 
in Life Insurance than in any other calling. Perhaps it is 
greater, because with us reputation counts for little or noth- 
ing, unless supported by present capacity. The business of 
a Rosen or a Huff would diminish rapidly if either should 
allow his efficiency to deteriorate. 

Let me urge upon you, then, to establish a habit of con- 
stant effort toward increase of practical ability. This can 
only be done under a systematic plan. Examine yourself and 
your work with a view to determining where improvement is 
most desirable. Turn your attention to the most urgent re- 
quirements and do not attempt too much at once. Conscien- 
tious endeavor in this direction cannot fail to result in 
marked results within a short time. This will encourage you 
to continue and once the habit of developing efficiency has 
been formed you must inevitably go steadily forward with 
constantly growing production and ever expanding interest 
in your work. 

I take it that you are not entirely satisfied with your per- 
sonal production, no matter how large it may be. This is 
as it should be. Progress results from desire to do more 
and to do better. With capable and ambitious men the 
goal recedes as they advance, so that they are always striv- 
ing for a distant mark and never reaching it. The right 
kind of success does not lead to satisfaction, but to increased 
longing for achievement. 

In this paper we are going to consider quite a different sort 
of dissatisfaction, — that of the man who is doing honest 

12 



work and failing to secure adequate results. Cases of this 
kind are frequent, especially among beginners. 

When hard work is not followed by the success that 
may reasonably be expected the explanation is to be sought 
in one or two of three general causes. These are: 1. 
Hopeless ineptitude. 2. Deficiency of understanding. 3. 
Lack of organization. 

Least of all shall we find that failure is due to radical 
unfitness for our business, — that is to say, complete absence 
of the qualities that make for success. Many a man has 
abandoned salesmanship in the belief that he was "not cut 
out for it" when, as a matter of fact, all that he needed 
was development of latent faculties and organization of 
himself. This is proved by numerous failures turned into 
marked success by intelligent thought and direction, ener- 
gized by earnest effort. 

When a man states that he is utterly unfit to be a sales- 
man he admits that he is utterly unfit for the struggle of 
life. Salesmanship is the most essential element of success. 
Every man in active life is offering something for sale, — 
either knowledge, service or material. You must be some 
sort of a salesman in order to make a living at all. And 
if you cannot make a success in Life Insurance it is ques- 
tionable whether you would do much better at anything else. 

By il deficiency of understanding " I mean failure to grasp 
the fundamental principles underlying Life Insurance Sales- 
manship. Thousands of men who have been carrying rate 
books for years could not answer the question: "What are 
the essentials of success in your business? Just what must 
you be and know and do in order to succeed? 7 ' It seems 
incredible — but it is a fact, nevertheless,— that any number 
of agents go along year after year without any clear idea 
of these elementary and vital matters. They are trying to 

IS 



make bricks without straw. Is it any wonder that they do 
not succeed! 

The dictionary tells us that to organize is "to bring into 
systematic connection and co-operation as parts of a whole, 
or to bring the various parts into effective co-operation and 
co-relation." When we speak of a man organizing himself 
we mean bringing his various powers, faculties and qualities 
into such a condition that they work together without fric- 
tion or waste of energy and reinforce one another, so as to 
produce the utmost possible results. When the organized 
man undertakes a task his whole ability is brought to bear 
upon it. 

It is highly probable that you possess powers, qualities 
or knowledge which might be turned to account in your 
business, but which you are not employing in it. You can 
decide the question for yourself by making a mental inven- 
tory of the elements that go to the composition of your per- 
sonality. Unless you are exceptionally efficient, this re- 
search will reveal unsuspected or overlooked possessions 
of practical value to you. 

Possibly there is lack of team work in the exercise of your 
faculties. Perhaps you do not temper aggressiveness with 
tact. Maybe you exert physical energy without due pro- 
portion of mental activity. For want of judgment you may 
carry persistence to excess, as when you waste time on hope- 
less cases. You may possess tact, intelligence and judgment, 
but fail to co-ordinate these qualities with others that you 
exercise. 

There are a score or more ways in which you may be what 
we call "unbalanced." By organizing yourself these de- 
fects will be overcome. Needless to say, your work will 
become easier and the results of it better. We shall prob- 
ably consider this subject more extensively on some future 
occasion. 

14 



The agent who is not getting adequate results for his 
efforts would do well to enquire whether any personal weak- 
ness or inefficiency is responsible for his failure. Some- 
times a man who has all the business qualifications for suc- 
cess is handicapped by a defect in character or a bad habit. 
And a single drawback of this kind may offset or, at least, 
reduce the effects of the greater advantages. 

WASTE OF ENEEGY. 

Energy is force in suspension or in operation. It must 
exist in the former state before it can be manifested in 
the latter. It cannot be suddenly created by an effort of 
will. That effort simply releases Energy. It does not orig- 
inate it. 

The definition is important, because a great deal of the 
Waste of Energy is due to ignorance of its true character. 

The human system is, in some sort, an electrical storage 
battery. It is charged with Energy by means of food, air, 
and rest. The process is similar to that of generating me- 
chanical Energy by the consumption of fuel and the produc- 
tion of steam. 

Storing of Energy is the essential, vital principle. An excess 
supply is maintained over the amount called for in ordinary 
daily activity. Waste is avoided by regulating expenditure 
to necessity. 

Confidence comes from consciousness of Energy in reserve. 
It gives a sense of preparedness for emergency. The ca- 
pacity of an individual is measurable by his reserve of En- 
ergy — by his ability to meet extraordinary demands upon 
his strength and intellect. 

Except in cases of nerve exhaustion, a considerable de- 
gree of excess Energy is always present. And it is highly 
necessary that it should be. To take a simple illustration: 
Suppose that you are crossing the street when an automo- 

15 



bile horn suddenly blares behind you and its vibrations set 
your spine atingle. On the instant, you leap aside with 
Energy far in excess of that required by your former ac- 
tivity of leisurely walking. If, however, you had been in 
such a state of fatigue as to be incapable of greater exer- 
tion than that of walking, you could not- have made the ex- 
traordinary effort suddenly demanded by the emergency. 

The conservation of reserve Energy is of the utmost im- 
portance. Every exercise of force in excess of require- 
ment entails a waste, the consequences of which may be 
much more serious than would be readily imagined. The 
failure of many a business negotiation is attributable to 
some careless and unnecessary dissipation of Energy. 

Energy is psychical as well as physical in its nature. The 
thousand and one ways in which it is wasted will fall within 
the following classification: 

1. Useless Physical activities. 

2. Excessive and unnecessary Mental activities. 

3. Wrong and uncontrolled Emotional expression. 

No leaks in our storage battery are to be ignored as in- 
consequential. Waste of Energy is involved in the slightest 
unnecessary physical movements, such as drumming with the 
fingers or tapping with the feet. So with trivial mental or 
emotional activities such as day dreaming, or irritation. 

Now, let us consider some of the matters directly connected 
with our business which entail Waste of Energy. 

The commonest physical form of Waste Energy is found 
in work without preparatory plan and forethought. Too 
many agents imagine that a liberal consumption of shoe 
leather is the sole requisite of success. 

Did you ever see a fire hose in action without a man at 
the nozzle? It threshes around like a thing possessed, 
squirting water here, there, and everywhere but on the right 
spot. It is a striking example of undirected Energy. 

16 



The man who enters upon his day's work without premedi- 
tation and hurries from point to point without prearrange- 
ment is the most reckless spendthrift in this respect. He is 
constantly wasting Energy which should be held in re- 
serve for purposeful occasions. 

Inefficiency invariably involves Waste of Energy. This is 
the underlying truth in the old adage: " Haste Makes 
Waste.' f Every task poorly performed — every improper 
method employed — represents a certain amount of misapplied 
effort. In the various stages of an insurance negotiation, 
serious losses of Energy are incurred through lack of thor- 
oughness. We all know what is meant by "selling a policy 
twice. ' ' 

In our intercourse with prospects we are recklessly 
prodigal in the expenditure of Energy. Instead of jealously 
hoarding it for use on vital issues and critical occasions, we 
lavishly devote it to non-essentials and matters of secondary 
moment. The thermal Energy expended in a heated argu- 
ment may deprive us, by just that much, of the force 
needed to close a case. 

Insurance agents are too prone to Waste Energy in con- 
tention. We seem to view our business as a sort of Donny- 
brook Fair performace. We go about with a perpetual chip 
on our shoulder. The prospect casually mentions another 
company and we immediately plunge into a discussion which 
uselessly consumes Energy, and, likely enough, creates com- 
petition where it did not previously exist. 

We must cultivate the sense of value and proportion. 
We must learn when to open the floodgates of force, and 
when to dam the flow. 

By fostering the Mood of Energy and maintaining it as 
a fixed habit we may ward off those mental states that make 
for Waste of Force. Worry, anger, and other wrong feel- 
ings and emotions are veritable vampires in their effect of 

17 



sapping the sources of Energy. They set up a chemical 
action in the system which produces physical poisoning. 
When the ancients spoke of the "jaundice of jealousy" 
and associated bile with hatred, they displayed an intimate 
knowledge of the physiological effects of those emotions. 

I have touched on but few of the numerous ways in 
which we waste Energy, my object being to stimulate your 
thought. As a matter of fact, these faults and those no- 
ticed in our discussions of Waste of Words and Waste of 
Time are, in the final analysis, due to want of reflection. 
It is not to be supposed that we would continue faulty 
methods and wasteful practices if we realized them. 

The truth of the matter is, that we do not think enough. 
The ability exists, and I do not doubt the willingness, but 
the habit is lacking. Let us apply more brain power to our 
work and to everything related to it, or which may be made 
effective in the promotion of it. 

FOOD FOE REFLECTION. 

All sources of power which can ever be available to you, 
lie within you — now. You can derive none from outside of 
yourself. 

What you are you have made yourself. What you may 
become depends entirely upon yourself. "All progress of 
the individual is a matter of inner unf oldment. ' ' 

Stagnation — physical or mental — is impossible. You must 
advance or retrograde. 

Nature's tendency is toward improvement, but Civiliza- 
tion and Environment are apt to induce deterioration. 

It remains with us — if we would develop the latent good 
within us — to co-operate with natural agencies to combat ad- 
verse tendencies. 

To this end our effort must be incessant, rather than vio- 

18 



lent. Dripping water will wear away a stone that would 
resist the blow of a sledge hammer. 

Our aim and practice in this endeavor should be made 
daily habit until they become automatic physical and mental 
functions. 

To illustrate: We may habituate ourselves to deep breath- 
ing and cheerfulness until these conditions become as natural 
and constant as the spontaneous action of heart and lungs. 

The extent of our inherent powers is practically unlimited. 
And with exercise they will grow in strength and facility. 

The basic essential to success is clear thought, interpreted 
by definite expression. Our verbal statement must have 
the precision of the cameo and our mental conception the 
stable consistency of the stone in which the cameo is cut. 

When we know exactly what we desire and can voice our 
wish in incisive terms, we have the groundwork upon which 
Faith and Will can build a structure of realization. 

Our chief instrument in self -influence and development is 
the Subconscious Mind. Our most effective method is Auto 
Suggestion. 

The Sub-Conscious Mind is active in every human being. 
But, like all other natural functions, its force and construc- 
tive energy are dependent upon its cultivation and direction. 

The Sub-Conscious Mind may be made an intelligent agent 
to no less an extent than the Objective Mind. More than 
that, the former, being less susceptible to material influences, 
may be controlled and educated more effectively than the lat- 
ter. 

The chief medium of communication with the Sub-Con- 
scious Mind is Auto-Suggestion, deliberate or involuntary. 
Through this means you may promote your welfare or effect 
your ruin. 

Let us remember that, for ourselves, nothing exists save 

19 



in our minds. The entire universe of the individual is neces- 
sarily bounded by his conceptions. 

In the light of this thought it is not too much to assert 
that persistent affirmation will create a fact. When the 
affirmation is reasonable, the fact will be a practical one. 

To make this clear: A man may affirm that he is a re- 
incarnation of Oliver Goldsmith until the belief becomes 
fixed in his mind. Now, so far as he is concerned, his affirma- 
tion creates a truth — a fact, though not a practical one. 

On the other hand, an arrant coward, may, by persistently 
affirming that he is courageous, actually become so. As the 
mind is the mainspring of action, if this man's mind holds 
a clear-cut, forceful, fact-impression of his courage, he must 
play the part suggested by his mental conception. 

Now, you will have a better understanding of the opening 

assertion: We are what we make ourselves and we may 
make ourselves what we will. 

This statement may be accepted almost without reserva- 
tion, so marvellously great is the power of the mind under 
direction. 

Of course, it is assumed that a person striving for a con- 
dition or achievement through the aid of this mental agency 
will employ every other available means to promote the de- 
sired result. 

It is hardly necessary to say that a mere wish is futile. 
Desire must be backed by Will and supported by Faith. 

Let us apply these principles to a practical issue of the ut- 
most interest and importance to yourself. 

You are ambitious of developing a high order of voca- 
tional ability. Success to an unlimited extent may be in- 
sured by faithful effort in conjunction with the following 
mental regimen: 

Every morning and several times in the course of the day 
assert simply and earnestly: 

20 



"I desire to excel in my business. I am confident that 
the power to do this resides with me. I am determined 
to arouse and exercise it. I WILL SUCCEED." 

Before falling asleep at night address yourself repeatedly 
thus: 

1 ' You will assuredly attain to superlative success in your 
business. You are now and constantly progressing toward 
the goal. Each day brings you nearer to it. Your Sub- 
Conscious Mind is attuning itself to your effort and will 
promote the development of the desired condition, even 
whilst you sleep." 

In shorter while than you can imagine, the effect of your 
endeavor will become apparent. You will experience a 
realization of growing power, and with it increasing Con- 
fidence and Will. 

This presentation of an inestimably important matter is 
extremely inadequate but, perhaps, sufficiently suggestive 
to afford you starting points for mental excursions into the 
most interesting and fruitful fields of applied psychology, 

THE MENTAL HAZAED OF THE CLOSE. 

No doubt you look upon the Close as immeasurably more 
important and more difficult than the other phases of the can- 
vass. 

Of course, closing is the sine qua non of salesmanship and 
its difficulty is not to be denied. But it is generally over- 
emphasized. 

The Close has been so extensively written about in exag- 
gerated terms that, with the majority of salesmen, it has be- 
come a mental hazard. 

Life Insurance agents have been led to believe that clos- 
ing is an inordinately difficult matter, calling for a peculiar 
kind of talent. 

"Good closers" are looked upon as the fortunate pos- 

21 



sessors of a mysterious faculty which few may enjoy in 
full measure. 

We have had solemn dissertations on the "psychological 
moment" for closing, with urgent advice to cultivate the 
intuition which recognizes this crucial occasion. 

For the most part, this treatment of closing is ridicu- 
lous. It •makes a mountain of a molehill. It is equally 
fallacious and harmful. 

The canvass is a succession of distinct processes, cul- 
minating in the Close. It is the ultimate aim of the sales 
effort. 

The Close has this distinction, that is the aim and end 
of the salesman's effort. In that respect it resembles the 
knock-out blow in a prize fight. 

But the pugilist knows that the coup de grace is the direct 
result of a number of other acts performed with efficiency 
and calculation. 

He works up to it in his training and in every round 
of his battle. He expects to realize it provided his preced- 
ing efforts have been adequate — and only in that case. 

He recognizes a psychological moment for administering 
the knockout, but he knows that if it fails then another, 
and perhaps a better, opportunity may occur. 

The situation is precisely the same with the Life Insurance 
agent. With him success in closing depends upon the man- 
ner in which he has performed the processes leading up to 
the Close. 

If he has made an efficient Approach, the prospect is fa- 
vorably disposed toward hearing the proposition. 

If he has made an efficient Presentation, Desire on the 
part of the Prospect has been created. 

The natural sequence of desire is action in conformity 
with it — in other words, closing. 

22 



In short, provided the steps leading up to it are efficiently 
done, closing presents no extraordinary difficulty. 

As to the "psychological moment/ ' of course there is a 
time in an effective canvass when the prospect is ripe for 
closing. 

But it is not a unique opportunity which, if missed, will 
never recur. You may fail to close at the first favorable 
chance and succeed on a second or third attempt. 

Don't allow the Close to assume exaggerated proportions 
in your mind. Give due attention and effort to the prelimi- 
nary processes in the canvass. Perform these adequately, 
and you will experience little difficulty in closing. 

SHEEE GEIT. 

This is a most remarkable story of success overcoming 
enormous obstacles. It is an illustration of purposeful will 
achieving its object under conditions that would daunt most 
men. The reading of it is recommended to agents who 
imagine that they are beset by extraordinary difficulties in 
their efforts to make headway. 

Let us call him Walker, which is not in the least like his 
actual name. About twenty years ago, when it was much 
more difficult than now to make money by fair means in our 
business, Walker came to one of the smaller cities of Penn- 
sylvania and connected himself with the local agency of a 
large New York company. It was customary at that time 
to make advances to new men provided that they gave 
even the smallest promise of success. This man, however, 
appeared to be such an unpromising candidate for Life In- 
surance laurels that the general agent endeavored to dis- 
suade him from entering the business. Walker refused to 
be diverted from his purpose and the contract was made, but 
no assistance whatever was extended to him. What moved 
Walker to decide upon Life Insurance Salesmanship as a 

23 



vocation it is impossible to say, but with a man of his 
caliber, the making of a determination in itself invests any 
undertaking with a serious aspect. Not only was he abso- 
lutely devoid of any special qualification for our business, 
but he was heavily handicapped by defects that appeared 
on the surface to be almost insurmountable. The man was 
a thorough rustic, fresh from the plow, poorly educated, 
with little knowledge of the world and none whatever of 
business affairs. He had an impediment in his speech which 
made it almost impossible to understand him until after 
several rehearsals had given the hearer some familiarity with 
the method of his mumblings. His face was almost covered 
with an unusually large and utterly untrammeled beard. The 
sturdy independence of the man was exhibited in his refusal 
to curtail this adornment although the general agent ex- 
plained to him that it could not be looked upon as anything 
but a detriment. Just what was his pecuniary condition I 
cannot say because he made no confidants, but he must have 
been operating upon a narrow margin because for many 
months he lived, as I learned by mere accident, in a cheap 
boarding house and made his luncheons of one or two ap- 
ples. This was not due to parsimony for the man dis- 
closed a strong streak of generosity and more than once ex- 
tended monetary aid to fellow-agents when he could ill 
afford to do so. 

Walker was about thirty-two years of age when he en- 
tered upon Life Insurance work. His assets consisted of a 
fine physique and certain native qualities which, as the event 
proved, more than offset his disadvantages. Needless to 
say, he knew nothing about the theory or practice of Life 
Insurance. Perhaps with a disinclination to be trouble- 
some, but more probably prompted by the strong self-con- 
fidence and self-sufficiency which possessed him, he made no 
appeal for information or advice, but set about his work 

24 



iii a way of his own. This way had the advantage of being 
simple and direct but was laborious to the point of drudg- 
ery. Taking the business directory of the place he deliber- 
ately set out to call upon every business man, and there were 
thousands of them in the city. 

At 8:30, as most of the agents were coming to the office, 
they would meet Walker passing out with his list of calls 
for the day. At about half past five, when most of the 
men were in the habit of starting home after a moderately 
busy day, Walker would be coming in at the close of eight 
hours' hard physical work. Perhaps it was not so hard to 
a man who had been accustomed to the monotony of follow- 
ing a plow for as many hours each day of the week. But 
the marvel of the thing was the dogged perseverance with 
which the man pursued his plan in the face of what would 
have appeared to anyone else to be a hopeless prospect. 
Month after month he worked in this manner for from fifty 
to sixty hours each week. Ninety days elapsed before he 
came into possession of what might be fairly called a pros- 
pect. You must remember that he could not create interest 
in any quarter until two or three interviews had given him 
an opportunity to make his speech passably comprehensible. 

The fifth month was drawing to a close when, after hav- 
ing called on about 2500 men, Walker secured his first appli- 
cation in the amount of $2000. From that time, slowly but 
surely, he began to make his influence felt through the force 
of a strong character. Business men found themselves bound 
to respect this uncouth man with quiet and almost uncanny 
manner. The men in the agents' room who had at the out- 
set made him the subject of ridicule very shortly changed 
their attitude. They were compelled to admire the man who 
displayed an utter indifference to their jibes and who asked 
from no one more than the opportunity to do his work un- 
disturbed and in his own way. 

25 



As time went on, Walker disclosed several attractive qual- 
ities. He had a generous and sympathetic nature, as well 
as a strong sense of humor His poise was absolutely unshak- 
able — nothing could disturb his mental equilibrium by a 
hair's breadth. Before the close of the year (and I may 
say that in his methodical manner Walker had started work 
upon January 1st) he had become the best-liked man in the 
agency. From the manager to the office boy everyone en- 
tertained for him feelings of the warmest regard. At the 
same time a number of business men had learned that the 
rough and crude exterior of this man masked a sterling 
character and lovable disposition. Several prominent mer- 
chants and manufacturers became actively interested in his 
welfare and went to extraordinary pains to promote his 
business. As a consequence, in the last six months of his 
first year he paid for somewhat in excess of $100,000 of busi- 
ness. At the close of the period he was perhaps the best 
known Life Insurance agent in the town. His very peculiar- 
ities, which at the outset had worked against him, he turned 
to account and made valuable assets. In his second year 
Walker paid for upwards of $300,000 of first-class business; 
indeed, to a man of his simple honesty nothing but first-class 
business would be possible. Offers from other agencies began 
to reach him, and more than one company tendered him 
a general agency. He ultimately made a connection as man- 
ager for one of the largest companies in the country and 
has been for many years a highly successful general agent. 

THE VIEWPOINT. 

"Zogbaum works with a pencil, I do things with a pen; 
but you sit up in a conning tower bossing ten thousand 
men." Going home from a bridge party on Saturday night 
I read those lines of Kipling, and they suggested to me 
some new thoughts on our business. 

26 



The amount of satisfaction and pride that one derives 
from his work depends upon the viewpoint. There is a 
touch of envy in Kipling's verses, but it is not improbable 
that the admiral had often thought that it would be the 
finest thing in the world to be able to draw a picture like 
Zogbaum's or turn phrases like Kipling's. 

Can any sea captain, artist, author, lawyer, physician or 
minister point to a prouder achievement than the insurance 
agent whose register records one thousand policies? Think 
what that means, at least five thousand comparatively help- 
less beings protected against privation and suffering. We 
have no cause to envy the man who does things with a pen, 
with a scalpel, or in any other way. There is no nobler 
calling than ours. 

In the past half century, Life Insurance has grown to enor- 
mous proportions in this country. It has increased thirty-fold 
in volume whilst our population has trebled. It has out- 
stripped all financial and commercial institutions in efficiency 
of administration and ethical standards of conduct. It has 
reached a condition and a stage where it is classed as a pro- 
fession and the men engaged in it are treated with the re- 
spect accorded to lawyers, engineers and others whose work 
necessitates a high order of intellect and education. 

Fathers engaged in professional and mercantile pursuits 
are today proud to have their sons take up Life Insurance 
salesmanship as a vocation and glad to afford them special 
educational preparation for it. It is the ideal young man's 
business. It affords scope for all the talents he may possess, 
for initiative, for originality and enthusiastic energy. It 
presents greater opportunities for early success than any 
other line of endeavor. Its field for permanent occupation 
and constant advancement is unlimited. 

Tens of thousands have made temporary successes in our 
business and thousands have made life successes of it. Why 

27 



has the proportion of the latter to the former been so 
small? Why has but one man gained a competency in Life 
Insurance to every ten men who have earned large incomes 
from its sale? 

Without doubt the explanation may be found in difference 
of viewpoint. The average Life Insurance agent looks upon 
the commission as the sole aim and end of his efforts. He 
holds the dollar so close to his eye that it shuts out the view 
of everything else. With that mental attitude he can't do 
anything worth while. No matter how much money he may 
earn, he cannot make any substantial success. 

Many bright men have enjoyed large incomes for years 
selling Life Insurance. When these men have viewed their 
business merely as a means of money making they have 
failed to develop personally with it. If one does not develop 
he must degenerate. Physical or mental stagnation is im- 
possible. You must go forward or backward. Consequently 
a time inevitably comes to such men when their ability be- 
gins to wane and their production takes a steadily decreas- 
ing course. Ultimately they reach the point at which they 
started — zero, or perhaps minus, for they seldom save any- 
thing. They become back numbers — "has-beens, " whose 
work has benefited themselves least of all. 

If a man's viewpoint regarding his business is right he 
will recognize its demand for the greatest degree of 
efficiency possible on his part. This he can obtain only by 
cultivation and development of his personal character and 
qualities. The more he improves these, the greater will be- 
come his business ability. There will be constant action 
and reaction. His business should operate as a stimulus to- 
ward personal improvement; his personal improvement as a 
stimulus toward business efficiency. 

Your business is big enough and important enough to 
justify you in using every possible means to increase your 

28 



fitness for it. Such means are much more than mere tech- 
nical knowledge and skill. They embrace everything that 
will make you better and stronger men. 

THE INSURANCE PREMIUM. 

Your policyholders sometimes wonder why they are 
charged just so much each year for their life insurance and 
what disposition the company makes of this money when it 
is paid in. Without being too technical, let us answer this 
very briefly. 

In the first place, the amount of annual premium for any 
particular policy depends mainly on two things — your ex- 
pectancy of life and the number of years your policy re- 
quires you to pay. Let us take a concrete case, as that 
will make our explanation clearer. 

Suppose you are 35 years old when you insure for, say, 
$5000. The average man at age 35, so experience has shown, 
will live almost 32 years longer. That is what we mean 
by his expectancy of life. Hence if your policy is a Straight 
Life or Whole Life policy it requires that you pay pre- 
miums for the rest of your life — 32 years, and the company 
must collect from you each year an amount which, when 
put out at compound interest (usually 3 or 3% per cent), 
will be sufficient to provide the $5000 at your death. This 
sum thus set aside each year and improved at compound in- 
terest is called the Reserve of your policy. 

But if your policy is a Twenty Payment Life policy, you 
are required to pay premiums for 20 years only, and those 
premiums must be sufficiently large to provide a reserve in 
the 20 years that will, at compound interest, make the $5000 
in 32 years — the time when, if you are an average man, you 
are scheduled to die. If your policy is a Twenty Year En- 
dowment, the company will be required to pay you $5000 
in cash at the end of the 20 years during which you are re- 

29 



quired to pay premiums. Hence the reserve must be large 
enough to accumulate the $5000 in 20 years. 

From the foregoing it will be plain why the Whole Life 
policy calls for a lower premium than a Twenty Payment 
Life policy, and the Twenty Payment Life policy in turn a 
lower premium than the Twenty Year Endowment. 

The reserve is by far the greater part of the annual pre- 
mium. A company is required by law to provide a reserve 
on every policy it issues and to kgep that reserve intact 
until the policy becomes a claim. This is what is meant by 
a legal reserve or old line company. 

It is interesting to note, in passing, that the reserves held 
by the American companies, which now aggregate billions 
of dollars, are at work in all kinds of high-class enterprises 
and improvements, practically every dollar being invested, 
with the approval of the state insurance departments, in 
such a way as to bring direct benefit to the people in every 
section of our country. 

While the largest element of the annual premium charge 
goes into the policy reserves, there are two other elements 
in the premium — the Current Mortality Charge and the Ex- 
pense Loading. The reserve is figured, as we have explained, 
on the average expectancy of life for any given class of 
insurers. But as a matter of fact some will die each year 
before that average expectancy is reached, and the death 
claims so arising each year must be met. The current mor- 
tality charge figured into the premium is sufficient, when 
added to whatever reserve may have accumulated on these 
policies that become claims before the life expectancy is 
reached, to fully meet these current death claims. 

The expense loading, the third and last element of the 
premium, represents the policyholder's annual contribution 
to the numerous expenses incident to the management of the 
business. Salaries of officers and clerks; agents' commis- 

30 



sions; medical examiners ' fees; bills for furniture, sta- 
tionery and printing; federal, state and municipal taxes, 
and sundry other items must be provided for, all of which 
are covered by the expense loading of the premium. 

To be a little more specific in our explanation, let us 
speak in figures. Suppose you are the holder of a Twenty 
Year Endowment policy for $1000, and your age is 35. In 
this policy the Company obligates itself to pay you $1000 
in cash at the end of 20 years. The annual premium charge 
(non-participating) for such a policy is $42.85. Of this 
amount, taking, say, the fifth year of the policy, $32.24 is 
reserve, $7.88 goes into the current mortality fund and 
$2.73, the balance, is the expense loading. 

The current mortality charge increases slightly each year 
with the advancing age, hence the amount of the premium 
that goes into the reserve each yar varies a little, but it is 
always sufficient to guarantee, adding in the interest, that 
there will be $1000 in cash at the end of the 20th year. 
The mortality charge and the expense loading disappear each 
year, whatever of these two elements that may not be used 
for the purposes stated being transferred to the Company's 
surplus funds. 

We should explain that the above premium rate ($42.85) 
is for a non-participating policy, which does not provide for 
the return to the policy holder of any surplus funds, com- 
monly called dividends. 

EDUCATE THE BENEFICIAEY. 

A distinct need exists for the education of those who are 
or who may become beneficiaries under life insurance pol- 
icies and the recipients of indemnity derived from them. 
Such education should have for its aim three specific pur- 
poses: 1. To inculcate an appreciation of the value of life 
insurance protection. 2. To instill careful ideas and en^ 

31 



courage the preservation of the policy. 3. To teach the 
necessity of economical and prudent disposition of its pro- 
ceeds. 

If the active influence of women should be generally ex- 
erted in favor of life insurance, the greatest potential fac- 
tor for its development would be brought into play. At pres- 
ent the prevalent attitude of women toward this, a matter 
of most vital concern to them, is that of indifference or 
antagonism. This attitude is, without doubt, largely due to 
ignorance. We know the prejudices, misapprehensions and 
selfish motives which prompt women to oppose life insurance. 
It is within our power to reduce or eradicate these adverse 
influences by a system of direct education. 

The literature of life insurance companies is practically 
all addressed to the prospective policyholder. Why not ad- 
dress some of it to the prospective beneficiary? Can we not 
impress the wife with a realization of the husband's duty 
to protect her adequately with life insurance? Can we not 
induce the mother to insist upon the proper protection of her 
children by the father? It would seem probable that these 
objects might be attained by directing toward women simi- 
lar agencies to those employed in the education of men. 

How much insurance might be saved from lapses if the 
interest and understanding of the beneficiary were greater? 
Thousands of women who consent to the surrender of their 
husbands 7 policies would not do so if they understood that 
replacement is only possible on the passing of satisfactory 
medical examination and the payment of a higher rate of 
premium. 

In another respect, it would be highly advantageous to 
excite the care of women for the conservation of policies. 
Loans would be less frequently applied for if the bene- 
ficiaries had a better appreciation of the impairment of the 
protection entailed by them. The pitiful ignorance on the 

32 



subject is made evident by the numerous claimants who 
actually imagine that the death of the insured cancels such 
liens. 

The ultimate object of life insurance is the payment of a 
death claim and that is its chief function. But it is question- 
able whether a company's interest in the matter should cease 
with the discharge of its contractural obligation. If it be 
possible by the exercise of a benevolent influence to en- 
hance the security and scope of the provision made for 
the beneficiary, it would seem to be justified by business 
policy no less than altruistic consideration. 

Thousands of claims are paid yearly without the atten- 
tion of beneficiaries being drawn to the advantageous in- 
stallment options available to them. Tens of thousands of 
checks are handed to inexperienced widows without a word 
of warning against swindlers or a hint of advice as to safe 
investment. A leaflet of purely disinterested character would 
serve a useful purpose in this respect. 

The income policies, now sold by nearly all companies in 
one form or another, are the most effective mediums for the 
protection of insurance money against loss and waste. The 
sale of these policies would undoubtedly be considerably 
increased by educating beneficiaries to the peculiar advan- 
tages of them. 

Let us educate the beneficiary. Here is a vast field of 
opportunity, arid only for lack of reclamation. Let us irri- 
gate it with intelligent instruction and the yield will be 
doubled per capita holding of life insurance within two gen- 
erations. 

GOING AFTEE BIG BUSINESS. 

Not infrequently I am asked to give suggestions for "go- 
ing after big business. " The writers are usually agents 
who have been more or less successful for years along the 
lines of medium production. Their envy and ambition have 

33 



been excited by the success of some acquaintance in landing 
a large application. The reply to one of these inquiries may 
be of general interest. 

" Before discussing methods of going after big business, 
it may be well to consider the advisability of going after it. 

' i A distinct class of men must be approached for big busi- 
ness and a distinct set of qualities is necessary in the agent 
to approach them with success. The man who possesses these 
special qualifications should assuredly seek to write large 
policies. But the man who is deficient in them cannot do 
worse than make the effort. 

1 ' I have known several agents, who had been highly suc- 
cessful while working within the limits of their capacities, 
to ruin their careers by going beyond their depth. To cite 
one case: I was acquainted with an agent who for years 
had written from $150,000 to $200,000 of business annually, 
a large proportion of it on the endowment form, but with 
hardly a case in excess of $5,000. He secured eight or ten 
applications every month and earned from $4,000 to $5,000 
a year. By the merest chance, and without an effort he 
closed a man for $100,000 and made a $3000 commission. 
From that day this agent was absolutely useless in the busi- 
ness. He could not resist the lure of big applications, al- 
though he was utterly lacking in the faculty of writing them. 
Business of moderate proportions lost its attractions for him. 
He sought only large cases and month after month passed 
without his doing anything. About a year after placing the 
$100,000 policy this agent went out of the business — -a good 
man spoiled by his own misjudgment. 

"Now as to your personal concern, let me ask you to an- 
swer the following questions frankly. Are you familiar with 
general business methods and principles? Do you understand 
business finance? Do you possess what may be called the 
business sense? Are you capable of meeting and talking to 

34 



men of affairs on an equal footing? Unless you can an- 
swer each of these questions with a deeided affirmative, you 
should hesitate about 'going after big business.' 

il Large applications are not secured every day and the 
most successful writers of big business fill in the intervals 
with comparatively small cases. A man who pays for more 
than $1,000,000 yearly has declared that he writes ten pol- 
icies of less than $20,000 as against every one of that amount 
and over. If you should decide to test your ability in greater 
efforts, let me advise that you continue to give 90% of your 
time to your usual business, only going after a big case oc- 
casionally and treating it as distinctly a sideline. ' ' 

SUSTAINING INTEREST. 

Why do so many men in our business seem to find their 
limit at or about the hundred-thousand-dollar mark of pro- 
duction. A variety of causes contribute to this condition. 
Lack of ability and skill are the least of these causes. Fail- 
ure to sustain interest is undoubtedly the chief of them. 

On every side we see young Life Insurance Salesmen who 
began their careers with natural endowments and other ad- 
vantages that gave every promise of marked success. They 
started out with enthusiasm and keen interest, worked hard 
and in a short while reached the hundred-thousand-dollar 
mark of production, and then slacked up in their progress. 
The observer may be unable to find any good reason for the 
stagnation. The young agent may be physically and mentally 
just as capable as ever, but he has ceased to move forward. 
The explanation is that his interest has waned and with it 
his ambition. His business has been allowed to become 
commonplace and has taken the character of enforced work 
and, perhaps, sheer drudgery. He finds no pleasure in its 
pursuit. His efforts diminish in effectiveness and are re- 
stricted to securing mere sufficiency for his needs. 

35 



This is a condition which may be avoided by the employ- 
ment of simple and easy means. It is one into which the 
agent falls gradually and generally without clear conscious- 
ness. As the novelty of his work wears off, his interest in 
it declines and the loss of early enthusiasm counteracts the 
advantage of increased experience. He has greater difficulty 
in paying for one hundred thousand in his third year than he 
had in his first. 

It may be accepted as an unquestionable proposition that 
the man who neglects to increase his practical efficiency and 
technical knowledge can not progress far nor for any length 
of time. The first essential, then, in sustaining interest is 
systematic study of the business and intelligent effort at 
improvement in salesmanship. This alone, if persistently 
maintained, must insure a well sustained interest in the 
work. 

A very powerful agency in the promotion of the same ob- 
ject is a clearly defined purpose and a large ambition. The 
young man entering upon our business, or any other, for that 
matter, should form at the outset a distinct idea of what he 
intends to do and how he intends to do it — a far reaching 
purpose, culminating in an ambitious achievement. Constant 
reflection on his purpose and its ultimate goal will act upon 
the agent as a spur and a conserver of interest. 

The proper attitude of the agent toward his business in- 
volves a lively regard for the welfare of his company and 
his agency, friendly co-operation with his fellow agents and 
diligent oversight of the interests of his policyholders. The 
young man whose work is regulated by consideration for 
these obligations can not fail to enjoy continuous interest in 
his business. 

We all love play and the rightly constituted man delights 
in anything that takes the form of contest. The young 
agent should turn this trait to account in the effort to sus- 

36 



tain permanent interest in his business. Let him enter into 
contests with other agents and with himself, setting himself 
to beat his own previous performances and to make new rec- 
ords. There are many ways in which he may inject the 
spirit of a game into his work, thereby making it lighter and 
more interesting. 

The young agent, especially, should be constantly on his 
guard against the insidious encroachment of staleness and 
the concurrent waning of interest. Nothing will as surely 
undermine his efficiency and sap his energy. 

SIDE ISSUES. 

What may be termed "side issues M of your business are 
incidents or conditions that affect it indirectly without being 
essential factors of it. Because they are, for the most part, 
features of your leisure, you are very apt to ignore their 
significance and to overlook their influence upon your busi- 
ness interests. 

The manner in which your private life is ordered, your 
general physical and mental condition, must be reflected in 
your work. This is the truth to such an extent that you 
may not hope for pronounced vocational efficiency without 
a basis of personal efficiency. 

Whilst I would not recommend the regulation of your so- 
cial life by mercenary motives, it is certain that you can- 
not afford to overlook anything which may tend to business 
profit. 

You should cultivate the acquaintance of the class of men 
among whom you work. Establish social relations with the 
most successful and reputable Life Insurance agents in the 
community. The respect and good will of one's competitors 
is a valuable asset. 

The occupations and pleasures of leisure should never be 
such as may injure the body, soil the soul, or mar the mind. 

37 



Let your recreations be clean and healthful. It is well to 
select them with regard to their effect in promoting qualities 
useful in your business. 

It is advisable to pursue with enthusiasm some active sport 
that will afford a physical and mental tonic. Golf is strongly 
to be recommended. It involves the best kind of discipline. 
Firm friendships are frequently formed on the links. You 
may get closer to a man during a round of eighteen holes 
than you could in a railroad journey of 1800 miles. 

Comport yourself with genial dignity and poise in your 
diversions and amusements. The impression you make upon 
observers at such times will often act for or against you in 
business. Aside from that consideration, the possession of 
the traits in question is an essential of successful salesman- 
ship. 

Dress is hardly less important than deportment. Let your 
clothing convey an impression of prosperity. It should not 
be obtrusive in any respect, but such that you will visualize 
in the mind of an acquaintance as a well dressed man without 
his being able to recall any article of your apparel. 

Take some useful part in the general civic and business ac- 
tivities of your community. Eesultant benefit to yourself 
will depend upon the spirit in which you do this. If you are 
actuated by selfish considerations, you will not gain much. 
If, on the other hand, you enter into this thing with a gen- 
uine desire to be helpful and do really good work, you will 
surely profit personally. Don't permit yourself to be drawn 
into strongly partisan movements. You may gain some warm 
friends in that manner, but can hardly fail to make as many 
bitter enemies. 

Provided you work hard at appropriate times, you should 
put your business aside in leisure hours. This does not imply, 
however, that you need be impervious to everything relating 
to it. On the contrary, if you are wise, you will cultivate 

38 



the habit of keeping your mind in a sensitized condition and 
constantly exposed so that every subject relating to your 
business will make a ready impression on your mental plate. 
Many agents owe their best prospects to the maintenance 
of this condition. 

Let me illustrate the point by recounting an incident which 
came under my observation some years ago. In the course 
of a journey from New York to St. Paul, two agents struck 
up a smoking room acquaintance with a man who informed 
them that he was the general manager of a newly organized 
manufacturing concern in St. Louis. With natural interest 
in the subject, he gave an outline of the company's plans 
and prospects. 

The Life Insurance men and their acquaintance separated 
in due course. One of the agents dismissed the incident from 
his mind. The other followed up the clew he had received 
on the train and ultimately placed $280,000 as a conse- 
quence of it. 

The side issues of our business are many. I have touched 
on but a few. It will pay you to give the matter thoughtful 
consideration, for your income may be largely affected by 
your conduct and mental attitude in leisure hours. 

GOLF MAXIMS FOE THE LIFE INSUKANCE AGENT. 

Before starting a match on a strange links, learn all yo* 
can about the course from observation and enquiry. 

Don't enter upon a definite canvass without careful prepa- 
ration. 

The effect of a stroke is largely dependent upon a correct 
stance. 

The manner in which you address your work will have 
much to do with the result. 

Don't force the ball — coax it. 

For every application gained by pressure, five are gained 
by persuasion. 

39 



Once on the green, go boldly and confidently for the hole. 
Kemember the adage: "Never up, never in." Don't drib- 
ble about feebly. Play to sink the ball. 

When you reach the closing point, don't hesitate timidly. 
Go straight to the point, — and close. 

The fairway is not a recreation park. It is the route to 
the hole, to be covered in the shortest and quickest way. 

Don't waste time and opportunity in unnecessary inter- 
views. Make your way to the closing stage as soon as pos- 
sible. 

Play one hole at a time. From the time that you drive 
off the tee until the moment that you drop your ball in the 
cup, there should be but one hole in your mind. Don't think 
a,bout the stroke that you lost in the last, nor the bogey you 
plan to make in the next. 

The Life Insurance agent is apt to allow his past failures 
and his hopes for the future to intrude upon his mind when it 
should be fully occupied with the business of the moment. 

When you are bunkered or get into the rough, keep cool 
and play deliberately. Above all, don 't lose your temper. If 
there were no hazards, the game would be too tame to be 
worth while. 

The Life Insurance agent who loses his head and becomes 
irritated when he meets with competition or other obstacle, 
is unfit for his work. If there were no difficulties in our busi- 
ness, it would be a dull occupation, with poor rewards. 

A stymie will take the heart out of one man and put pep 
into another. One will quit under the check; the other will 
take the setback philosophically and make a rattling re- 
covery. 

So it is with Life Insurance agents. Obstruction breaks the 
backs of some and saps their nerves, whilst it serves to stimu- 
late others. 

You may have to make a choice between a lofting ap- 

40 



proach and a run up. Decide on one and play it. Don't 
waver between the two and finish with a foozle. 

Many a good case is spoiled by vacillation. Better make a 
faulty decision and act firmly on it, than to wobble in doubt 
and indecision. 

WASTE OF WOEDS. 

In the present age the most valuable art is that of the 
effective employment of words. Time was when our an- 
cestors looked contemptuously upon speech and writing as 
accomplishments fit only for monks and scriveners. That 
was the Age of Brawn when a man worked his will with 
the aid of a club, and found in fear the most potent agency 
for persuasion. This is the Age of Brain in which the mas- 
ter forces are of mental origin and words are the principal 
promoters of action. In this day an epigram may be more 
effective than an army corps. 

Our business is peculiarly dependent on speech. In al- 
most all other lines of salesmanship something tangible is 
offered, making appeal to the sight and other senses. In 
ours, success is secured solely by playing upon the imagina- 
tion through the medium of the spoken word. 

In this and other respects our work resembles that of the 
preacher and the advocate. In these professions men take 
the utmost pains to cultivate the art of speaking and to re- 
hearse for particular efforts. With rare exceptions, we 
neglect all such preparation. 

Few of us really appreciate the power of words properly 
applied. We never think of studying to make our speech 
more effective; but deliberate effort in this direction would 
add immeasurably to our success as salesmen. We may, by 
intelligent exercise, develop our powers of exposition, con- 
viction and persuasion; we may cultivate feeling, energy 
and imagination; we may learn the effective use of pause, 
emphasis, and climax. 

41 



A moderate degree of trouble devoted to acquiring a know- 
ledge of word values and to improvement in expression will 
largely repay the salesman in increased efficiency. As it is, 
we talk at random. Often the spoken word fails to express 
our meaning, and, what is worse, it sometimes misrepresents 
the thought. When the conveyance of an idea is laborious 
there is something faulty in our mental process or verbal 
expression. 

This subject, which I have hardly touched upon, deserves 
more extended consideration, and we may take it up again 
on a future occasion. At present the matter for discussion 
is the Waste of Words rather than the effective use of them. 

The commonest fault of the Life Insurance agent is talking 
too much. The root of this defect is to be found in failure 
to think enough. 

To my mind, the most remarkable feature of the great 
jury addresses of such masters as Russell, Choate, and Bal- 
lantyne is the adequacy without redundance of the presenta- 
tion. What is the secret of this remarkable precision? 
Without doubt, it is thorough mental review. They had ex- 
amined their subject from every angle, and especially from 
the viewpoint of their prospective hearers. They had a 
clear-cut conception of the thoughts which they wished to 
create in the minds of the jury and could calculate to a 
nicety the amount of verbal weight and stimulation neces- 
sary to set the desired mental process in operation. 

Able teachers, preachers, and writers do not aim to se- 
cure their efforts by exhaustive statement, but by sugges- 
tion. Similarly our object should not be to save thought 
on the part of our Prospect, but to encourage it. By telling 
the whole story with attenuated detail, we produce the ef- 
fect of the nurse's fairy tale on the little boy in the crib. 
He attends with keen interest, which is evidenced by an 

42 



occasional question. Then lie falls into the easier mental 
attitude of passive receptivity, and presently he is asleep. 

The fault of exhaustive presentation is generally aggra- 
vated by overelaboration, which wearies if it does not irri- 
tate an intelligent man. 

On a certain occasion Mark Twain heard a sermon on 
foreign missions. In the first fifteen minutes the minister 
made a masterful plea. Twain was greatly moved and de- 
cided to donate a hundred dollars to the cause. But, as the 
preacher continued with a flood of words which added noth- 
ing to the force of his original statement, the humorist's fire 
of enthusiasm was gradually quenched. It had been redueed 
to a feeble flicker by the time the offertory plate was passed, 
and Twain dropped into it four bits. 

Our endeavor should be to produce the desired impression 
in as few words as need be, and with the aid of suggestion. 
We can find no better examples of the economical and ef- 
fective use of words than the magazines ' advertisements af- 
ford. The Life Insurance solicitor may gain the most valu- 
able hints from a study of them. 

Excessive verbiage is nearly always accompanied by the 
too rapid expression of ideas. We transfer an unaccustomed 
thought to our Prospect's mind and before he has had time 
to assimilate it, project another upon his mental retina, with 
the inevitable result of confusion. 

You are familiar with the effect of casting a stone into a 
still pond. It creates a series of regular and concentrie 
movements which gradually cease. But if, before these have 
subsided, you throw in another stone, the character of the 
former activity is changed and the combined result is a num- 
ber of irregular and eccentric movements. A third stone 
will increase the confusion, and a fourth will create a 
veritable chaos of ripples. 

43 



Now, we frequently stand off and pitch stones into our 
Prospect's mind until his think tank splashes over. 

Whilst repetition may be made to serve our purpose, it is 
too often practiced detrimentally. A telling point may be 
repeated with variation of expression three or four times in 
a canvass and have the effect of strengthening an impression. 
But mere repetition of a statement which has just been 
made is a Waste of Words, or worse, for it is apt to make 
a mental blur which may be likened to two or more ex- 
posures of a photographic plate. 

WASTE OF TIME. 

It sometimes happens that an apparently healthy person 
experiences a puzzling lack of vigor. He feels well, but 
falls short in strength and stamina of the standard indicated 
by his appearance. On examination the physician finds some 
defect in the process of his digestion, circulation or secre- 
tion, entailing an unsuspected waste. So an earnest and in- 
dustrious Life Insurance agent sometimes fails to secure the 
results that his efforts would seem to justify him in expect- 
ing. Examination will generally reveal defective methods 
of which he is unconscious. The most common of these in- 
volve Waste of Time, Waste of Words, and Waste of Energy. 

Waste of Time. Time is the raw material of our business. 
An appreciation of its value is the most important lesson 
that a Life Insurance salesman can learn. 

His occupation is one of peculiar freedom and inde- 
pendence.. His work is not laid out in clearly presented 
tasks, brought immediately to hand. He is his own em- 
ployer — his own timekeeper. His hours of labor and de- 
grees of effort are entirely under his command. For these 
reasons Life Insurance solicitors are particularly prone to 
be irregular and wasteful in the disposition of their Time. 

This shortcoming is in large measure due to carelessness. 

44 



Many men waste time without realization of the fact. It is 
safe to say that there is not one of us but would be astounded 
could an exact exhibit be placed before him of Time un- 
consciously wasted by him in the course of any week. 

Few men deliberately idle, and that phase of the question 
may be ignored. Let us restrict ourselves to consideration 
of a few of the numerous ways in which we allow Time to 
slip by us without being turned to good account, or, worse 
still, kill it by misuse. 

We do not sufficiently guard against the inducements to 
waste Time that are created by others. The most insidious 
temptations of this kind are presented by acquaintances, 
fellow-agents and Prospects who engage us in profitless 
conversation during business hours. The casual meeting, the 
fruitless discussion, the aimless argument, consume more 
Time than we can afford to lose, not to mention the ill-effect 
of sidetracking our minds. 

Lack of system is one of the most prolific causes of loss 
of Time. The man whose activities are regulated from one 
end of the day to the other, usually makes the most of his 
Time. If you have no fixed hour for rising, retiring, reach- 
ing the office, taking your lunch, you must inevitably lose 
much Time through the derangement of plans and the neces- 
sary readjustment. 

Comparatively few persons regulate their hours of sleep 
by intelligent judgment or knowledge of actual requirement. 
It is a question to which little serious thought is given, and 
inclination is usually the deciding factor. 

For many years the writer sincerely believed that he 
needed eight hours of sleep nightly and that nine hours 
were good for him when he could secure them. Careful test 
has convinced him that seven hours sleep is the best allow- 
ance for him and that he can get along very well with six 
when necessary. This discovery brought the humiliating dis- 

45 



closure that he had wasted two or three years as surely as 
though he had been dead for that time. It also brought 
the consolatory knowledge that he may add the equivalent 
of fifty working days, or two months, to every year in the 
future. 

It will be well worth while to consider this matter in 
your own case. After a certain point, sleep ceases to be 
energizing and becomes enervating. It may be that you are 
impairing health, as well as losing money, during the last 
hour you spend in bed of a morning. 

Have you ever calculated the Time you spend on street 
cars? I>o you turn it to any account, or is it sheer waste? 
It should be devoted to definite mental occupation. The 
Time consumed in traveling from your home to the office may 
be profitably employed in rehearsing a canvass, framing 
an argument, or considering some one of the many matters 
of business concern which, ordinarily, do not reeeive the 
thought they deserve. 

Most men are prone to spend too much thought and speech 
on non-essentials. Interviews are unduly prolonged by need- 
less discussion. Matters of no moment are permitted to in- 
trude upon the mind and rob it of Time which should be de- 
voted to matters of consequence. 

These dissipations of Time are avoidable. The rest hour 
may be occupied by studying insurance literature or reading 
some book of the uplift kind. Conversations, interviews and 
tasks may be regulated by a watchful thriftiness, instead of 
the usual liberal carelessness. All Time should be devoted 
to some definite purpose, even though it be diversion. Mental 
drifting is enervating and demoralizing. The practice of 
economy, if persisted in, will culminate in a confirmed habit 
which, for most of us, will result in saving many valuable 
hours in the course of a week. 

46 



In short, Time has a money value to the business man and 
he should check his expenditure of it as he does that of his 
bank deposit. 

PEESONAL EFFICIENCY. 

When the writer entered the Life Insurance business it 
was customary to give a new agent a rate book and leave 
him to "dig it out for himself." Few managers had the 
ability to train men and hardly any appreciated the advan- 
tage of doing so. Today most general agents realize that 
moral obligation and self-interest demand that the beginner 
shall be given all assistance possible in his early efforts. 

Training has become quite general, but it is almost in- 
variably restricted to technical instruction. In the majority 
of cases this is building houses upon sand. The highly 
efficient salesman is produced by this process only in the rare 
instances where a foundation of personal efficiency previously 
existed. Our system of educating field men will become 
adequate when we recognize the fact that no one can be 
efficient in business and inefficient in private life. 

Let us suppose that you use a machine for seven hours of 
each day. During that period you oil and tend it, but at all 
other times neglect it, allowing it to rust and become dirty. 
Every day you have the preparatory task of putting your 
machine into working condition and, what is worse, its me- 
chanical efficiency fast deteriorates. But by taking ordi- 
nary care of it when not in use, it would be ready for em- 
ployment whenever needed and its efficient service would be 
greatly prolonged. 

Now the machine which we employ in our work is com- 
posed of body and brain. The degree of service which they 
will render in business must depend in large measure upon 
the treatment they receive outside working hours. In short, 
there are two phases of efficiency, which, for the sake of 

47 



distinction, we may term Personal Efficiency and Professional 
Efficiency. 

We will define personal efficiency as the habit of per- 
forming the ordinary affairs of life fitly and adequately. It 
may be applied to lacing a shoe, reading a newspaper, or 
playing a game of golf. There is a best way of doing each 
of these things, and with the efficient man it is his standard 
way — the method which he has arrived at by test, and which 
he employs invariably as the quickest, easiest and most ef- 
fective way of securing the desired result. 

The man who is habitually and consistently efficient in 
his private affairs is, on that account, more efficient in his 
business than he would be otherwise, because the faculties 
that make for general efficiency are kept constantly in prac- 
tice. He will perform more work with less effort in a given 
time than will an inefficient person, because he employs the 
best methods, and they are at once the easiest and the most 
expeditious. His time is necessarily well-ordered, because 
efficiency without system is impossible. 

Like charity, efficiency begins at home. It is essentially 
a mental attitude, which cannot be assumed, like an office 
coat, at a certain hour and put off at another. It must be 
habitual and can be made so only when the principles that 
regulate an individual's conduct are applied to his leisure, 
no less than to business. 

You cannot lay too strong stress on personal efficiency. 
Systematically practice concentration, keep time consump- 
tion schedules, embracing twenty-four hours, and standard- 
ize routine daily tasks. It has been found that when men 
are awakened to a realization of the importance of self -im- 
provement they need little urging to engage in it. A suffi- 
cient incentive exists the moment a man understands that 
to him who has achieved personal efficiency, professional ef 
ficieney is comparatively easy of attainment. 

48 



HAVE YOU GOT IT IN YOU! 
Nearly every man possesses latent powers which, turned 
to proper account, will insure success. Failure is generally 
due to the lack of self -organization; that is, to absence of 
co-ordinated activity of the faculties. In order to create 
a desirable condition in this respect, you must be willing to 
put in more or less hard work in the development of the 
ability that surely resides within you. 

You may have heard of the public speaker who called at- 
tention to the remarkable "coincidence" that the sites of 
large cities are almost invariably upon the banks of large 
rivers. Things don't "just happen. M This is a world of 
cause and effect. Everything is the result of force and de- 
sign. 

"Genius is the faculty of taking infinite pains." Success 
can only be secured at the cost of labor, intelligently applied. 
Yourself is the medium through which you will succeed, if 
at all. Then, the first step in the pursuit of success is to 
learn to know yourself. Find out wEat resources, in the way 
of personal qualities, you have with which to work, and 
what essentials you lack. Cultivate the latter and organize 
the former. 

In making your self-examination, ask the following ques- 
tions and answer them honestly: 

Do I really will success, or merely wish it? Do I desire 
it strongly enough to pay the price? Can I keep my mind 
steadily fixed upon my purpose, despite discouragement and 
disappointment? Have I the patience to plod and drudge 
along toward my objective? Have I the grit to come back 
smiling after repeated failures? Have I the nerve to tackle 
undertakings big in comparison with my past accomplish- 
ments f Have I the determination to plan my work with ex- 
haustive deliberation; to perform its details with laborious 

49 



carefulness; to apply to its execution unflinching energy and 
constant devotion? 

No matter what you are today, how poor your ability and 
your achievement, if you can qualify by these tests, your 
ultimate success is as certain as the rising of tomorrow's sun 
and — what is more-— there need be no limit to it. 

BE A BETTEE BOSS. 

The Life Insurance Salesman is peculiarly independent. 
He is distinctly his own boss. No one but himself can keep 
check on his work and regulate it. He may indulge indo- 
lence and shirk duties without being called to account. 
These conditions create one of the chief difficulties with 
which we have to contend. They make self-control more 
than ordinarily necessary and, for the very reason that com- 
pulsion is absent, they impose a moral obligation to do hon- 
est work. 

There are men who do not boss themselves to any extent, 
who are slaves to their desires and who are mastered by 
every adverse circumstance. I am not considering such 
weaklings. Fortunately they are a negligible minority. I 
shall take it for granted that all my readers realize, at 
least, the duty of serious endeavor and entertain a sincere 
inclination to improve their efficiency. 

The trouble with most of us is careless bossing. You know 
how a horse, if he is driven with a loose rein, will fall into 
an easy gait and soon make a habit of it. Men are much 
the same, especially salesmen, who are their own drivers. 
You can avoid slackness only by laying down regular rules 
for the government of yourself and rigidly adhering to them. 
Even at that, it is necessary to keep a close watch on your- 
self and tickle your flanks with the whip now and again. 

The man who undertakes to boss himself effectually has 
a bigger job than the mayor of a city. It can only be ac- 

50 



complished by the exercise of a strong will, supported by 
interest in your work and a cherished purpose. But, what- 
ever the cost in self-denial and painful effort, you must ac- 
quire the power of bossing yourself completely, for your suc- 
cess in business and your happiness in life depend upon your 
doing so. 

Probably you are a very busy boss in your home. If 
the cook is not punctual with the meals, you talk turkey to 
her. You check your wife if she is extravagant in the pur- 
chases. You insist that your little girl gets off to school on 
time every morning and that she sits down to the minute 
every evening to study her lessons. Your small boy is not 
allowed to overeat and he must be tucked in at the same 
hour regularly every night. You think that you do a pretty 
good job of bossing. But how about yourself? Do you al- 
ways start for the office punctually! Are you never waste- 
ful of your time and your money? Do you perform all your 
daily tasks as they come to hand? Are you prudent in your 
habits of living and careful of your health? Man, boss your- 
self better and you will be better able to boss your family. 

You have often observed an agent of ordinary talents to 
outstrip another having greater natural gifts, even though 
they worked equally hard. You may have seen a skinny lit- 
tle caddie line out a golf ball fifty yards farther than a man 
with twice his muscle could drive it. The explanation is 
the same in both cases. The success comes from know- 
ing how to apply available power. The agent knows his 
strong and weak points and the knowledge enables him to 
apply his energy in directions which will give the best re- 
sults. 

Many a man fails, not because he lacks ability, but because 
he doesn't know how to boss himself — because he actually 
doesn't know enough about his qualities to put himself to 
work in the most effective way. Are you sure that you have 

51 



yourself sized up rightly — that you have a correct estimate of 
your character, disposition, temperament and talents — the 
elements that constitute latent capacity? 

Your chief task in life is bossing yourself. You can't do 
it to the best advantage without knowing yourself thor- 
oughly. On the other hand, gain such knowledge and you 
will be able to turn your useful qualities to full account. 
You will learn where you need improvement. In short, you 
will gain a definite idea of the kind of man you have to deal 
with in yourself. And you will know how best to boss him. 
Most of us go through life using only a small portion of the 
faculties at our command and sometimes neglecting the most 
valuable of them. It is as though a man should devote a 
lifetime of energetic labor to raising potatoes on a tract 
of land, beneath which lay a rich vein of gold. 

How is one to discover his power, you may ask? By self- 
analysis — that is to say, by study of his mental qualities 
and by practical test of his capacity. Men of strong ini- 
tiative — men who are constantly setting themselves new 
and bigger tasks to perform — find out by actual trial what 
they can do. And, as increased accomplishment begets in- 
creased confidence and develops increased power, such men 
are ever capable of doing more and greater things. 

If you were employing a high-priced man, you would take 
pains to discover his utmost capacity, to ascertain in what 
directions his particular knowledge, experience and ability 
might be used to your own profit. You would try him out 
with various tasks and give him enlarged responsibility from 
time to time, with a view to learning the extent of his pow- 
ers and developing his talents. You are your own employe 
and a very high-priced one, when you come to figure it out. 
It will pay you to apply the same system to bossing your- 
self. 

It is safe to say that you have no idea of your latent 

52 



capacity — that you never once in your life exerted yourself 
to the very utmost. It is practically certain that you are 
capable of much greater accomplishment than you have ever 
realized. It is possible that you have undreamed of pow- 
ers at your command, only awaiting your call upon them. 
One honest try-out, one whole-hearted effort, with all the 
energy that you can summon, will prove the most valuable 
experience in self-knowledge and probably exert a lasting in- 
fluence over your entire life. 

The world is full of potentially successful men who never 
develop beyond mediocrity. Men who have become great 
owe their rise to having discovered their latent powers and 
to having learned that nothing is impossible. The trouble 
with most of us is that we are ready to accept difficulties as 
impossibilities. We measure our capacity by our past 
achievement and because we have never done a certain thing, 
think that we cannot do it. This is auto-paralysis, self-sup- 
pression. 

An Irishman was asked if he could play the piano. 

"I don't know/' he replied, "I have never tried." We 
don't try. We under-rate our powers. In all probability, 
there isn't one of us living up to sixty per cent, of his poten- 
tial efficiency. We are afraid of failure. The man who 
never failed, never attempted anything worth while. It is 
certain that he could never have extended himself to the 
utmost. 'Tis better to have tried and failed, than never to 
have tried at all. 

Don't let your ambition or your enterprise be limited by 
what you are doing or what you have done. That is no 
criterion of what you may do. No matter how insignificant 
your past accomplishments, you can't guage your future pos- 
sibilities until you have made a really big effort, bringing 
all your faculties and latent powers to bear upon it. You 
may never have paid for $200,000 of business in twelve 

53 



months, and yet have the dormant capacity to write half 
a million every year. 

Boss yourself a bit. Say, "Here Jim, it's costing me too 
much to keep you. You've got to work harder and produce 
more. You are capable of it, I know, and I want you to 
show me what you can do. In the next six months I shall 
expect you to get rid of your bad habits — you know what 
they are — and hook up with some good ones in their places. 
And not less than $100,000 of paid-for business by March 
first, mind you. Now, go to it and remember that I shall 
be watching you closely. ' ' 

And when Jim comes through, treat him as a generous 
employer should. Give him a week's holiday or a new suit 
of clothes. An important principle is involved there and it 
will pay you to observe it. Enter into agreements with 
yourself for the just reward of performance. For example: 
"It's a beastly hot day Jim and I know you are not feeling 
quite up to par, but I guess you'll have to buck the line, old 
sport. Put in seven hours of the best that's in you and 
I'll blow you to a good dinner down at the beach tonight." 

Drive yourself with a tight rein, but be good to yourself 
— when you deserve it. The horse that has made a long trip 
in good form has a right to look for his fill of oats and a 
cosy shake-down. Let all tasks of self*discipline be accom- 
panied by suitable rewards. You order yourself to rise at a 
certain hour every morning for a month, to cut down your 
smoking, or to work for a fixed number of hours every day. 
Have a definite understanding as to what you are going to 
do for yourself in the event of satisfactory behavior. 

More than in any other respect, we fall down in the mat- 
ter of Time consumption. There is no direction, however, 
in which improvement will yield greater results. Time is 
the raw material of our business. To waste or misapply it 

54 



entails monetary loss just as surely as to waste or spoil cloth 
would in a shirt factory. 

In this connection reform must begin at home. A chaotic 
condition of domestic affairs cannot fail to affect your busi- 
ness adversely. If you go to bed at all hours of the night, 
you can hardly expect to rise fit and early. If you have no 
regular hour for breakfast, you will not reach the office at a 
stated time. Your working day must be systematically regu- 
lated — certain time for arriving at the office, certain hours 
for canvassing, morning and evenings. The more nearly you 
can reduce your schedule to habit, the easier will its ob- 
servance be. 

It is not sufficient to put in a stated number of hours 
at work. They must be effectively employed. In order to 
ascertain how time is consumed and to keep check upon it. 
use of the Eecord Card is recommended. Your manager can 
give you a copy of this device which more than anything 
else of which I know will aid you in regulating your working 
hours and learning exactly how you spend them. 

It is fair to surmise that you cannot say how much time 
you actually turned to account in your business last week. 
Do you know precisely how long you worked yesterday? The 
truth of the matter is that you spend your time carelessly 
and without calculation. It is not at all improbable that 
one hour of your day is consumed uselessly. One hour wasted 
each day means a day wasted each week. One day a week 
will run into fifty-two days a year. Two months of twenty- 
six working days wasted in the course of a year. 

Now, what would you do with an employe who should 
waste that much of the time for which you paid him? You'd 
jack him up quickly, of course. Don't you think that is what 
you ought to do to yourself? Wouldn't you be better for 
severe bossing? 

Let us take it for granted that you are conscious of your 

55 



short-comings and anxious for self-improvement. Begin by 
acquiring the right mental attitude. Get a proper concep- 
tion of your opportunities and responsibilities. Eealize the 
obligations upon you to make the greatest possible success 
of your life. Find out what manner of man you are and 
how you may best handle yourself. Examine the quality of 
your work. Analyze your interviews and discover the causes 
of success and failure. Determine definitely why you are not 
doing better and decide on methods for increasing results. 
In short, BE A BETTEE BOSS. 

LEARNING YOUR BUSINESS. 

What is Salesmanship? A simple and comprehensive defi- 
nition is: "The art of creating in the mind of another 
a desire for something one has to dispose of. " 

The essence of salesmanship is, then, the creation of De- 
sire. How is this to be accomplished! By Persuasion; that 
is influence. 

There are just two methods of exercising persuasion, — 
they are Argument and Suggestion. By overt appeal to rea- 
son and by subtle excitement of favorable thoughts and emo- 
tions. 

Now, there you have, in brief, the sum and substance of 
your work. Every case you canvass will involve distinctly 
peculiar factors, but, in the final analysis, success will 
always depend upon the creation of desire, by means of 
persuasion, and through the medium of argument or sugges- 
tion. 

Now, that is simple enough, that is easy to understand, 
though more or less difficult to realize. You know the chief 
requirement of your business. It is the. exercise of the 
faculty of Persuasion. 

The cultivation of this faculty then, should be your prin- 

56 



cipal object. How are you going to attain it! But, perhaps, 
we had better start from the negative side of the inquiry. 

Technical knowledge will not help you in this respect. 
You may know the history of Life Insurance from the or- 
ganization of the Amicable Society to the passage of the 
War Kisk Measure. You may be familiar with the formulas 
for computing premiums and calculating dividends. 

But this sort of thing will not increase your ability to in- 
duce the signature on the dotted line. It will not enhance 
your faculty for creating desire nor strengthen your power 
of persuasion. 

You may retort that I have published numerous articles 
on the distinctly technical phases of Life Insurance in the 
journals. True, but I have never claimed that the subject 
matter would be more than incidentally effective in the prac- 
tical pursuit of your business. 

Moreover, those articles are mainly intended for the expe- 
rienced agent; not for the novice, or the salesman in embryo. 
They are designed to give the finishing touches to an agent's 
education. 

If you should start to make a cabinet by varnishing the 
material, it would hamper the carpentry and gum up your 
hands so that you couldn't work properly. I have known 
many a promising Life Insurance agent to be ruined by a 
varnish 01 technical knowledge. 

You don't need to absorb a lot of stuff about the history 
and science ot Life Insurance in order to sell it. That sort 
of thing is useful enough in its way and in its place. And 
its place is after you have laid a solid foundation of funda- 
mental knowledge and training. 

The manner of man you are must determine the degree of 
success you will have. Begin with the cultivation of Per- 
sonality. That is the all-important consideration and the 

57 



essential basis of salesmanship ability. Acquire personal 
efficiency and the rest will be mere child 's play. 

Neither Prospect nor agent realizes the extent to which 
the personal equation affects an insurance negotiation. It is 
always influential and not infrequently the deciding factor. 
You must be acquainted with agents who do a substantial 
business almost solely on the strength of their personality. 

The possession of attractive personal qualities manifests 
in that indefinable power we call Magnetism. A fortunate 
few are naturally magnetic, but it is within the power of 
any man to acquire magnetism by the cultivation of char- 
acter. 

It isn't merely pleasing personality that we have in mind. 
The more serviceable and admirable traits, such as cour- 
age, poise, forcefulness, are potent in rendering the possessor 
magnetic. Become personally efficient and you will not lack 
the power of persuasion. 

This is the big thing — the sine qua non — but it does not 
exhaust the' requirement. You will need to turn your per- 
sonal qualities to effective account. And this you may do by 
making them the medium for the practice of the principles of 
salesmanship. 

Study and exercise in the science of selling, coincidently 
with the cultivation of personality, will develop the ability 
to creat desire. You will become a real salesman, capable of 
selling anything, with the acquisition of a little vocational 
knowledge. 

You may be tempted to begin with the varnish in satis- 
faction of curiosity or pride. Don't make that mistake. Be 
content to work with the rough wood until you shall have 
constructed your cabinet. Time enough to doll it up then. 

Get down to innate sources of power. Your mind is an 
inexhaustible storehouse of latent energy. Operate it as you 
might a dynamo. So will you make an efficient MAN of 

58 



yourself. The efficient salesman you desire to become wiM 
follow as a matter of course. 

SELF-IMPBOVEMENT. 

I shall presume that Life Insurance Salesmanship is your 
permanent vocation and that you "are ambitious of making 
more than ordinary success in it. Perhaps, you are one of 
the many whose efforts for improvement in selling ability 
fail to produce the expected results. It is highly improbable 
that this is due to ineptitude. In all likelihood you lack a 
clear and definite idea of the nature of your task. 

If you should go to a doctor for " stomach trouble/ J he 
would search for the cause before prescribing a remedy. He 
would make enquiry as to the history and symptoms of the 
case, your habit of living, the character of your diet, and 
other particulars. If, instead of gaining an intelligent un- 
derstanding of the trouble, he should give you some medi- 
cine which had proved to be efficacious in many stomach 
disorders, your chances of recovery would be greatly re- 
duced, because some features of your case might render the 
remedy only partially, or not at all, suitable to it. 

Now, you may be acting in the manner of the careless 
physician. You may be one of the numerous agents who pre- 
scribe for themselves, or employ popular prescriptions, with- 
out making a diagnosis, as a basis for intelligent action. You 
desire self-improvement and thoughtlessly adopt methods 
which have produced improvement in other men. 

Generalities are unsafe guides in such a situation. Barely 
will one of the widely advocated methods fit individual con- 
ditions and requirements, without some modification. Some- 
times they are entirely unsuitable to the case at issue. 

"See more persons/ ' is one of the generalities in point. 
It is only another way of saying "work harder," advice 
which might be followed with advantage by most agents. It 

59 



is almost universally applicable — but not quite so. I have 
under observation at the present time a striking exception to 
its suitability. 

The man in question is of a nervous temperament; in- 
tensely energetic and possessed by the strongest desire for 
success. During his first year he worked for eight or nine 
hours every day as hard as any man could, but with indiffer- 
ent results. He tried as best he knew how to improve in 
salesmanship, and worried himself sick over the failure of 
his efforts. 

Obviously the need in this young man 's case was less work 
and better ordered. For several months past he has been 
reaching his office at ten o'clock and leaving at Hve. The 
addition to his leisure time, morning and evening, is occu- 
pied in organizing and training himself. He is gaining poise, 
deliberation, circumspection. He is learning to control his 
nervous energy and direct it into the most profitable chan- 
nels. He now puts in six hours of planned work and, of 
course, the results are much greater than they were formerly. 

This illustration is intended to emphasize the necessity of 
self-examination as a basis for any plan of self -improvement. 
Find out, first of all, if you have any defects of character or 
habit that militate against your vocational efficiency. If 
you discover any such, your first task is to suppress them 
and cultivate their opposites. Then make a survey of the 
qualities you possess that may be employed in the promo- 
tion of your business. And devise methods for turning them 
to the best account. In this process you cannot fail to learn 
the exact reasons for your failure to get results from your 
work. 

The self-knowledge which will follow this system must pre- 
vent you from making mistakes in the adoption of technical 
methods. You will be able to determine readily the applica- 
bility of this or that advice to yourself. It will not be suffi- 

60 



cient for you that Bill Smith is highly successful with writ- 
ten presentations or that Tom Jones makes $20,000 a year by 
straight canvassing. You will want to know how and to 
what extent, if at all, those methods may be profitably fol- 
lowed by you. 

The important matter is to discover principles. They are 
the only true measure of the soundness of practices. Gain a 
clear understanding of the principles involved and you will 
have no difficulty in determining upon the best methods of 
their practical application. 

LUCK. 

If Luck is inordinate chance — if it is entirely independent 
of design or intelligent influence — how shall we account for 
its falling again and again upon one person with evil con- 
sequences and as regularly upon another with good results t 
This is contrary to the very essence of chance and consistent 
with the action of order. It should make us doubt whether 
what we call luck is quite as casual as it is generally sup- 
posed to be. 

For years I have found it interesting and instructive to 
investigate striking cases of "luck" occurring in history and 
common life. In the final analysis it has always been evi- 
dent that the apparently casual good or bad fortune was due 
to some rational cause over which the subject of the luck 
had control, and that the cause in question was essential to 
the consummation. So invariable is this condition as to jus- 
tify the conclusion that luck is governed by law and is the 
logical outcome of cause and effect. 

It is clear that the misconception of luck is due to a con- 
fusion of ideas in which the element of chance is treated 
as the effective factor, whereas it is in truth merely the out- 
let for the operation of the latter. It is as though one 
should attribute the force expended by a cartridge to tha 

61 



percussion cap rather than to the charge of powder. The 
force is inherent in the explosive, awaiting release through 
the medium of the cap. This condition exactly parallels that 
which exists in many cases of so-called luck. 

I believe that in every case of good or bad luck investiga- 
tion will reveal causes lying behind the chance that is gen- 
erally accepted as the controlling factor, causes, moreover, 
for which the subject of luck was responsible. It is probably 
to a realization of this truth that we owe the use of the word 
chance as a synonym for opportunity, as when we say: "Be 
hopefully patient. Your chance will come some day." 

Now and again we are moved to wonder by the good for- 
tune which suddenly, and without apparent reason, befalls 
some person, raising him from obscurity to prominence, or 
from poverty to wealth. In all such instances investigation 
would show that by specific preparation in work and study, 
or by cultivation of character and faculties, the beneficiary 
had qualified himself to take advantage of the opportunity 
unexpectedly presented by chance. 

On the reorganization of one of our largest railroads, the 
new president secured the election to the vice-presidency of 
a young man who had been stenographer to the former head 
of the line. The choice was made because during the twelve 
years that this young man had been occupied in clerical work 
he had learned all he could pertaining to railroading. He 
had studied railroad engineering, railroad finance, railroad 
advertising, railroad transportation and the rest. His vaca- 
tions had been spent in traveling over the line, becoming 
familiar with it and its tributary territory. When his in- 
come jumped from $150 a month to $15,000 a year the pub- 
lic dubbed him il lucky" and his associates hinted at favorit- 
ism, but executives don't play favorites when their own suc- 
eess is dependent on the efficiency of their assistants. 

02 



A man can adopt no surer way of courting promotion than 
that of performing his present work, no matter how humble, 
as well as he possibly can. When general after general had 
conspicuously failed to solve the Egyptian problem, a coun- 
cil was held at the British War Office to decide upon a new 
commander. The Duke of Cambridge, then Commander-in- 
Chief, suggested Major Kitchener, whose name was hardly 
known to any of the others present. He had never done 
anything of great importance — he had never had anything of 
great importance to do= — but the records showed, and his va- 
rious commanding officers attested, that every task ever en- 
trusted to Kitchener had been thoroughly performed. No 
one could say whether the young officer was equal to the 
biggest thing the British Empire had on hand, but as a sport- 
ing member remarked in the House: "When a jockey has 
carried your money safely every time in the past, he looks 
like a safe bet for a future event. n Kitchener received the 
appointment over the heads of scores of men who called him 
a "lucky dog. " 

A member of the Eussian royal family suffered severe and 
complicated injuries of a peculiar character in a railroad ac- 
cident which occurred at a remote part of the country. The 
officers of the Archduke 's staff bemoaned the fact that no 
better aid was available than that of a supposedly unskilled 
country practitioner. But it happened that this surgeon had 
enjoyed extensive experience in dealing with mining acci- 
dents and for fourteen years had made a deep study of im- 
proved treatment. His solitariness had developed resource- 
fulness and originality. When the court physicians arrived a 
few days later they found a case that amazed them by the 
novelty of the operation and the rapidity of recovery. With- 
in a year the erstwhile village surgeon was at the head of 
his profession in the capital and, whilst his skill was ad- 
mitted to be wonderful, his luck was pronounced phenomenal. 

63 



There is no such thing as luck in the sense of pure chance. 
Don't believe in it, and above all don't depend upon it* 
Dame Fortune, like a sensible old lady, is most apt to visit 
those best prepared to entertain her, but she doesn't knock 
at doors without having made some previous enquiry about 
the inmates. 

On the other hand, chance, in the sense of opportunity, is 
something to be always alertly looking for. Your chance, 
however, can only be yours because you have qualified your- 
self to take it. What avails it to you that a niche be 
vacated, if you cannot fit it? 

You can command good luck if you will. To do so needs 
that you perform your present work to the very best of your 
ability, putting into it not merely all that it calls for, but 
all that you possess of energy and inspiration. Any work may 
be treated in this manner, though it be no more important 
than that of sweeping an office. Meanwhile, persistently 
practice the improvement of character and faculties. Acquire 
knowledge beyond that required by your immediate duties. 
Understudy some man higher up. If you never fill his place 
you will have grown by the ability to do so. When Nadir 
Shah was being carried from the field at a critical stage of 
a battle, he said: " Leave it to Gadu Khan," who was by 
no means the ranking officer. Train yourself so that when 
some superior is abandoning an important position he wilL 
say: " Leave it to Jack Bobinson," or whatever your name 
may be. 

Follow these suggestions and you may depend upon being 
lucky. 

THE POINTED POLICY PKESENTATION. 

A certain Philadelphia merchant contemplated the pur- 
chase of a limousine. He had an invalid daughter, who was 
the subject of his constant care and consideration. This fact 

64 



was doubtless known by each of the four salesmen who 
sought his order, but only one of them took advantage of it. 
He confined his presentation to one point — comfort. He 
dwelt on the shock absorber, the luxurious upholstering, the 
easy lines of the body. His competitors expatiated on a 
score or more of superior features in their respective ma- 
chines. 

The prospective purchaser received general impressions 
respecting four propositions. "With regard to the other, he 
had one clear-cut, definite idea. It is hardly necessary to say 
that the shrewd salesman who had employed suggestion to 
stimulate a strong motive secured the sale. 

The principle illustrated in this incident beds at the root 
of success in selling life insurance. The efficient canvass is 
impossible to the man who has not a full understanding of it. 
He may be forceful, persuasive, and even successful in writ- 
ing business, but he cannot gain adequate results from his 
efforts without the application of this principle of the con- 
centrated appeal. 

The most essential factor in a sale is desire. In order to 
desire a thing one must have a conception of it, and the 
clearer the conception the stronger will be the desire. 

It follows that the primary object of the salesman should 
be to create a clear conception of his proposition. This ne- 
cessitates a clear idea of it in his own mind, and the state- 
ment of that idea briefly and simply. Clarity and simplicity 
are twin sisters — their names are almost synonyms. 

The impressiveness of Niagara is due to the unity of the 
effect. There is nothing to divide the attention with that 
immense downfalling mass of water. On the other hand, 
the beauties of the Grand Canyon are not fully perceived in 
the rich confusion of a general view and can only be appre- 
ciated by detaching certain portions and concentrating atten- 
tion upon them. 

65 



The typical Life Insurance solicitor falls into the error of 
thinking that he may best arouse desire by offering quantity 
as an incentive. His presentation of a policy consists of 
a rapid recital of practically all the benefits to be derived 
from it. The result is a dim and confused conception on the 
part of the Prospect, sometimes involving conflicting ideas 
as when he is prompted to consider at the same time the 
surrender and the maturity of a polio j. 

Such a presentation may create some sort of weak desire, 
but it lacks dynamic force because of the absence of im- 
pelling motive. The inducement is too diffuse and spread 
too thinly. It usually elicits the i( I-will-think-it-over ' ' de- 
cision which is too often justified by the fact that the inter- 
view has precluded coherent thought. 

There is one predominant feature in every insurance con- 
tract — protection or investment — and it should be made the 
keynote of the canvass and the focal point of the argument. 
Everything else is more or less of a side issue. In a Monthly 
Income proposition, for instance the certainty and complete- 
ness of the protection is the essence of the offer. It will be 
accepted only because that is the chief, if not the sole con- 
sideration. The most effective canvasses of this policy are 
made without mention of any other benefit, on the principle 
of avoiding distraction of the Prospect 7 s mind and concentrat- 
ing the appeal. 

Most of us will remember the fakir at the old-time coun- 
try fair, who used to open proceedings by asking a quarter 
for a cheap colored handkerchief. After dilating in flowery 
language on the beauty and utility of the article, he would 
add to it a pair of gilt cuff buttons backed up by a similar 
eloquent appeal. The offer would then be strengthened by a 
pinchbeck brooch with the appropriate patter. When the 
collection included four or iive articles a purchaser would 
come forward. 



Now this was not diffusive salesmanship. It was not the 
birdshot method, but the magazine rifle method of appeal. 
Unconsciously the man employed the principle of cumulative 
effect. He made each article play its part and create its full 
influence before bringing another to its support. Had he 
presented all the things included in his offer at once or in 
rapid succession, he would not have made the sale. 

Here is the clue to the effective method of presenting a 
policy. Let the agent state his main proposition as clearly 
as possible and drive it home with all the argument at his 
command. If need be, let him reinforce his appeal with an- 
other inducement in the form of total disability, or accident 
indemnity, presented with equal thoroughness. He will thus 
convey a succession of definite ideas to the mind of his Pros- 
pect and advance by definite steps to the closing point. 

Policy illustrations are responsible for many objectionable 
developments of our business, not the least among them be- 
ing the general prominenec of non-forfeiture features in the 
canvass. The agent may strengthen his policy presentation 
by eliminating all reference to them. He cannot introduce 
the thought of lapse or surrender without detriment to his 
purpose. His endeavor should be to amplify the idea of 
benefits and avoid allusion to misfortunes. The Prospect 
may broach the subject, in which case it can usually be dis- 
posed of in a general, rather than specific, manner. Some 
such statement as the following is recommended: i( A con- 
siderable proportion of your deposits is placed to the per- 
manent credit of your policy, accumulated at interest, and 
held in reserve to meet your future needs in a variety of 
ways. ' ' 

WILL POWEE. 

"YO* canna' keep owt redd up ony proper road on a sand- 
hill. " 

"Ah know yo* canna', but yo 7 mun, Billy. " 



This little bit of dialogue may need translation to reach 
the understanding of some of my readers. It is extracted 
from Kipling's account of one of the big training camps in 
England. A raw "Tommy" from Yorkshire has been 
"checked" by his sergeant for having a disorderly kit and, 
in excuse, says: "You can't keep anything straightened up 
in proper fashion on a sandhill." To which the "non-com" 
replies: "I know you can't, but you must, Billy." 

The paradoxical retort contains a great lesson. The old 
soldier has learned it. The recruit will learn it by and by 
with much travail and stress of soul. 

How many, many of the can't-be-done things are done 
when they become must-be-dones. The leading physicians of 
London declared to Cecil Rhodes: "You can't live six 
months." He replied: "I must." When his companions 
told that gallant fellow Oates that he could not march on 
frozen feet, he answered: "I will," and he did through ten 
days of agony. 

These well-nigh miraculous cases are cited to show the al- 
most limitless extent of will power. Our greatest tasks are 
child's play in comparison, but we fall down under them. 
The explanation of contrasting outcomes from similar con- 
ditions is found in the fact that whilst one courts defeat, 
another woes victory by his attitude in the face of diffi- 
culty. One man's spirit bleats, "I can't," the other's 
shouts, "I will." And a soul that attacks an undertaking 
with determination to accomplish it and with confidence of 
success, puts Failure to flight at the outset. 

Desire and resolution must not be confused with the dy- 
namic force of Will. Determination must be supported by 
the utmost activity of all the physical and mental faculties 
at our command. We must use every means available to 
the end and subordinate every other interest to the supreme 

68 



object. If this be done, there is practically nothing beyond 
the scope of our attainment. 

Success in your business is probably your chief ambition. 
Are you making a serious and strenuous effort to achieve it? 
Is there a single day in which your entire strength and will 
are constantly devoted to that end? On the other hand, does 
not every round of the clock register numerous acts of com- 
mission and omission that are distinctly detrimental to your 
object? 

Success cannot be had for the wishing. It must be striven 
for with steady energy. It must be paid for by self-denial. 
It must be persistently pursued upon an intelligent plan. 

You work reasonably hard, perhaps, but the results are 
not satisfactory. It may be taken for granted that you de- 
sire improvement. Let us suggest a way to secure it. 

Take time — plenty of it — to think about the matter. Form 
a clear idea of the object you wish to attain. Make an in- 
ventory of the faculties which you can employ in the project 
and decide upon the best ways of using them. Devise a defi- 
nite and detailed plan of action. Then go ahead with de- 
termination to adhere to your plan. Keep your goal con- 
stantly in your mind's eye. And never allow your con- 
fidence in ultimate success to weaken. 

FAILURE TO MAKE USE OF POLICYHOLDEKS. 

One of the most universal traits of human nature is pride 
of ownership. You see evidence of it on every hand. How 
often you hear men say: "My dentist is a wonder, " "M3y 
tlailor is the best in town, "■" My golf ball is a bird, ' ' ll My 
machine has them all beaten." Yes, you find men boasting 
of every conceivable thing under the sun but one. You 
seldom hear a man say; "My Life Insurance Company is 
the best." 

69 



Why should this distinction exist to the disadvantage of 
Life Insurance? Is there any sound reason why this uni- 
versal trait of pride of ownership should stop short in its 
effect upon the owner of a Life Insurance policy? I think 
not. Moreover, I believe that Life Insurance, being one of 
the most important of a man's possessions, it is quite possible 
to make the pride of ownership exceptionally strong in that 
connection. As a matter of fact, it is sometimes done, but 
the instances are so rare as to emphasize the general absence 
of the condition. 

The truth of the matter is that we do not exploit our pol- 
icyholders to anything like the extent that we should. We 
can and we ought to make them as enthusiastic about our 
particular company as they are about any other concern 
with which they have dealings. 

But how? By precisely the same methods as other con- 
cerns employ. And those methods may be summarized as 
continued attention. 

How does a man acquire his enthusiasm for a certain 
make of automobile, for example? Seldom, if ever, merely 
by the use of it. After he has purchased, the manufacturer, 
directly or indirectly, keeps in touch with him. He receives 
circulars relating to the machine and reads advertisements 
extolling its superiority. The salesman calls upon him at in- 
tervals to learn how it is running and takes the oppor- 
tunity to increase his satisfaction and enthusiasm. He is 
not treated as dead-wood after he has bought, but is culti- 
vated as a prospective customer for a repeat order and a 
booster for new business. 

An enormous amount of possible business is lost to Life 
Insurance agents by failure to treat their policyholders in 
the same manner. If we did as the automobile people do we 
should find large numbers of men taking policy after policy 
in the same company, just as they buy one model after an- 

70 



other of the same machine, and recommending that company 
to their friends. 

Our policyholders are enthusiastic when we sell to them 
usually, but by neglect we allow their feelings to die. Culti- 
vate your policyholders. Make a point of seeing them at 
regular intervals. There are few practices of your business 
which will yield better returns for the time and labor ex- 
pended. 

SET UP A GOAL. 

Without a definite object and a set purpose a man can not 
progress far, nor do much worth while. The general object 
of writing business is not enough to spur the agent to his 
best efforts nor to keep him keyed up. He must have a 
certain amount of production determined as the year's task. 
But that is not sufficient. He must have a clearly- defined 
goal as the purpose of his life work. It is surprising how 
much this condition and definiteness tend* to perseverance, 
interest and efficiency. 

We have been watching the evolution of a young man who 
joined a company a year ago. To his advantage was a strong 
character and sound health, but he had no special qualifi- 
cation for salesmanship. At the outset this man's chance 
of success was no more than the average. He made it a 
certainty by planning his development and setting up a defi- 
nite mark for his first year's accomplishment, as well as an 
ultimate goal for achievement. 

In the first ninety days the new agent wrote practically 
nothing. In the next ninety days his production was fair 
and his ability markedly improved. During the latter six 
months he has written about $70,000 of good business, and 
is fast developing into a first-class Life Insurance salesman. 

Observing this man's progress, it has been apparent that 
his success is chiefly due to entertaining a definite purpose 
and pursuing it persistently. 

71 



DESPATCHING. 

Efficient Despatching is performing a task at the time as- 
signed for it and in the time alloted to it. Despatching pre- 
supposes Planning and Scheduling. 

Despatching is the essential factor of effective performance 
in business and private affairs. It is to activity what the 
rails are to a locomotive. 

Efficient Despatching gives direction to energy and pro- 
duces the maximum results from it. 

In no other respect is the average Life Insurance agent so 
incompetent as in the matter of Despatching. As a rule he 
entirely disregards it. 

Many fieldmen carry their lists of Prospects without ar- 
rangement in a vest pocket note-book. 

Some, but far from a majority, use a card file in which 
the names are distributed according to dates of future calls. 

Probably fewer than one per cent Plan their future work, 
make daily and hourly Schedules of it and Despatch it ac- 
cordingly. 

The failure to systematize work in accord with the prin- 
ciples of Planning, Scheduling and Despatching is responsible 
for an enormous amount of waste energy, business loss, dis- 
concerting hurry and unnecessary worry. 

The day of the typical agent is haphazard, if not actually 
chaotic. He has no regular time for reaching the office or 
going upon the street. Consequently he frequently starts work 
behind time for some call or with an' engagement completely 
overlooked. This induces agitation or disappointment which 
affects him until nightfall. 

Or he may commence the day at a complete loss as to how 
to dispose of his time. He has plenty of Prospects, but they 
are not arranged either in his mind or in his desk. He can- 
not decide upon a call to make at once. He goes out to work 
irresolute and passes the day in aimless drifting. 



Here and there one conies across a man who presents a 
striking contrast to the general condition. His business day 
begins at a stated time. Every hour of it is Scheduled before- 
hand in conformity with thoughtful plan and prearrangement. 
Habituated to punctuality and diligence, he goes through the 
day without friction and without loss of energy. - 

In one case the man is a plaything of chance; in the other, 
a master of circumstances. 

The shiftless, thoughtless agent can always find excuses to 
satisfy himself. He never realizes the real fact that ninety 
per cent of his shortcomings and failures are due to his own 
weakness and that, with will and energy, he may overcome the 
difficulties and obstructions of which he complains. If instead 
of seeking the line of least resistance, he would resolutely set 
about fitting himself to cope with conditions as they come, 
half his obstacles would melt in the mere glow of his mental 
attitude. 

Whatever the agent purposes to do, let him make up his 
mind to this, that no considerable nor permanent achievement 
is possible in the absence of Despatching. Important work 
must be thoughtfully and intelligently Planned in advance. 
Time and equipment for its proper performance must be 
Scheduled. A task due must be done without delay. It must 
be performed with diligent concentration in order to be out of 
the way of the next item on the Schedule. This practice of 
Despatching alone will substantially increase any agent's pro- 
duction. It may be even more effective in this respect than 
improved skill in canvassing. Indeed, we sometimes find a 
man of mediocre ability reporting a large volume of business 
yearly and doing so mainly because, by the practice of De- 
spatching he contrives to make nearly one hundred per cent 
of his limited ability count. 

73 



THE PREMIUM IS NOT A GAUGE OF COST. 

We are frequently asked: 1. W^ill the contemplated new 
mortality table result in reduction of premiums? 2. Wiill re- 
duction of premiums produce reduction of cost? 3. Are the 
companies which have materially reduced participating rates 
below the standard figures giving their policyholders any sub- 
stantial benefit? 

The following explanation should furnish answers to each 
of these questions: 

The mortality tables in use predicate death losses consid- 
erably in excess of those experienced by companies in general. 
There is in the possession of American Life Insurance offices 
tabulated data, derived from their several experiences, which 
afford a sufficient basis for the construction of a table which 
will indicate more accurately, than do the present standard 
tables, the mortality among insured persons at this day. The 
compilation of such a table is contemplated by the Actuarial 
Society of America and its scientific value will be ample 
justification for the task. It is extremely doubtful, however, 
whether any practical benefit could be gained by the adoption 
of a new standard of computation by the companies. Cer- 
tainly the popular belief that such a step would result in re- 
duction of the cost of insurance is a delusion. 

The premium on a participating policy represents the average 
cost of insurance, plus a margin of safety. The excess amount 
serves to meet adverse mortality fluctuations and provides 
dividends. The actual or net cost to the insured is not regu- 
lated by the premium charge, but by the amount of saving 
effected through profitable and economical management and 
through careful selection of risks, which amount, in the form 
of a dividend, is applied to the reduction of the premium. 

To make this matter clearer, let us assume a policy on which 
the annual premium is $24. The expense charge is, we will 
say, $3. The balance is designed to furnish the policyholder's 

74 



contribution to current mortality and to supply the necessary 
reserve deposit. Now, we will suppose that the company's 
actual death rate is sufficiently below the tabular to enable it 
to save $2 on this policy's calculated contribution, and its 
interest earning is sufficiently higher than its standard rate to 
enable it to credit this policy with fifty cents from the latter 
source of profit. At the close of the year the policyholder 
will receive a dividend of $2.50, making the net cost of his 
insurance $18.50. This process will be repeated year after 
year. After the initial payment he will always send his check 
to the company for the difference between the gross premium 
and the net cost. It is obvious, therefore, that — the net charge 
being regulated by the actual cost to the company of carrying 
the risk — the amount of the premium is of little consequence. 
In only one way is it possible to reduce the cost of insur- 
ance, that is, by reduction of the expense charge, which is 
already as low as practicable and much lower than the cost 
of marketing any of the commodities in general use. Nor 
would the adoption of a new mortality table result in a low- 
ering of non-participating rates, for these are necessarily 
fixed with a view to competition with the net cost of partic- 
ipating insurance. 

NO MYSTERY ABOUT IT. 

lt Doesn't it beat anything, the way some fellows have luck. 
There's Jones now. Ten years ago we were in the same office 
and I was drawing a bit more salary than he was. Now he's 
getting $6000 a year. It surely is better to be born lucky 
than rich." 

Of course you have often heard men talk that way. It ex- 
presses the attitude of thousands who have yet to learn that 
success of any kind must be earned. The " lucky one" who 
occupies a good position and earns a big salary, invariably 
does so by reason of superior efficiency of some sort. 

75 



To thoroughly understand and appreciate that fact would 
in itself be a valuable education to many a young man start- 
ing in life. Good things do not ' ' turn up ; ' ' they are always 
at hand for the man who can discern opportunity and has the 
ability to turn it to account. 

To the right kind of men it is greatly more satisfactory to 
think of success as the reward of certain attributes exercised 
in hard work, than it is to look upon it as a chance prize to 
be possibly gained without effort. Good luck may elude a 
man constantly but the result of efficiency is as inevitable as 
the operation of the solar system. 

Very often the difference between the $10,000 man and the 
$2000 is entirely one of efficiency. The latter not infrequently 
had the initial advantage of greater natural ability. Perhaps, 
both performed their immediate work well, but one added to 
present performance preparation for the future. In business, 
no less than in athletics, the best trained man wins. 

The Life Insurance agent who desires to improve his posi- 
tion and his income must be willing to give a certain propor- 
tion of his time to training his body and mind for greater 
efficiency. It is noticeable that men who make no effort be- 
yond that of immediate production, seldom go very far, 
although they may write a considerable volume of business. 
These are the men who reach a certain point and then begin 
to slip back. They become the "have beens" of the busi- 
ness. 

Permanent success can only be bought at the price of sys- 
tematic and persistent endeavor for increase of efficiency. 

THE USE OF TIME. 

The first step in any reformation is honest and thorough 
examination of the conditions to be reformed. If you are to 
improve your use of time you must start with a close inves- 
tigation of your present manner of using it. As the easiest 

76 



and ultimately the quickest way of effecting such an object 
as we have in view is by short and simple stages, we shall, 
for the nonce, consider only business time or working hours. 

Let us at the outset, ask you to candidly determine whether 
you are in any degree addicted to a peculiar form of self- 
deception which is quite common. We all know the man who 
is always i ' busy, ' ' but does little work. His inefficiency may 
be due to mental disorderliness, or it may be a typical case 
of disguised idleness. Most of us indulge in this form of 
dissipation to some extent. We yield to indolence but main- 
tain a semblance of work for the sake of quieting our con- 
science. 

The agent on the street doesn't "feel like doing anything," 
but in order to preserve his peace of mind he walks about 
languidly and without purpose until he has consumed the usual 
working time. A man who does this sort of thing with suffi- 
cient frequency acquires at length great facility in fooling 
himself and is generally surprised that his paper record of 
industry is accompanied by so small a production of business. 

Truth and reality are unconditionally and invariably better 
than sham and deception. It will do a man less harm to loaf 
ostentatiously than to idle under the pretense of work. In 
the former case his self-respect will not suffer so greatly and 
he will, at least, have the advantage of knowing definitely how 
his time was consumed. 

Nothing can undermine morals and efficiency more than this 
flimsy compromise with duty. If you are guilty of it habitually 
or occasionally, make a resolution to be done with it, once 
for all. Decide that when you cannot summon up energy 
enough for genuine work you will honestly indulge your lazi- 
ness rather than cloak it with pretense. This will compel you 
to face the issue squarely. It deprives you of your Mother 
Winslow's Soothing Syrup and forces you to take your con- 
science colic or do your duty. 



Among men in our business an enormous amount of time 
is lost and misused. A great deal of this time is unconsciously 
wasted. We have no standard of value for it — no idea of the 
money 's worth of an hour. As a consequence we fail to ap- 
preciate the advantage of keeping account of our time as we 
do of our gasoline and groceries which have a definite value. 

But we may easily establish a standard of value for our 
working hours. Let us assume that you devote 1800 hours a 
year to your business and derive $2700 from it. Then it is 
fair to consider each hour of actual work as worth, at least, 
$1.50, for a large proportion of the total time is wasted. If 
you will set $1.50, or whatever the appropriate figures may 
be in your case, as th-3 standard value of each of your business 
hours and form a habit of looking at every hour in the light 
of its money's worth, it is certain that you will waste a great 
deal less time. 

If your time yields $1.50 an hour, you may increase your 
income materially by adding one hour a day to your work. 
You don't wish to give more than seven hours a day to your 
business! You don't need to do so. Wihere is the extra hour 
to come from! Pick it out of the waste pile. If it is worth 
$1.50 — and you must convince yourself that every hour is po- 
tentially worth your standard value for it — you can't afford to 
throw it away. 

Set a standard value on your time — your raw material — 
and then watch its consumption to see that you do not WASTE 
MONEY. 

There is only one way of making an effective examination 
of time consumption. That is by regularly keeping an account 
of its use as you might of cash outlays. In our present inves- 
tigation it will only be necessary to note time devoted to actual 
work and time otherwise spent during business hours. Take a 
email book and rule off the working hours with quarters. At 

78 



convenient intervals in the day mark the quarter hours spent 
in work with a cross and leave the others blank. 

This practice maintained for a few weeks will show your 
waste, tend to form the habit of watching time consumption 
and create in your mind a stronger sense of the value of time. 
The effect will well repay you for the little trouble involved 
in the experiment. 

THE NEW YEAE. 

New Year's Eesolutions furnish the comic paper and face- 
tious friends with unlimited material for fun and satire. 

There is, in truth, an element of humor in the fragile char- 
acter of many heroic resolves announced at the opening of the 
year. But the numerous failures of serious intentions, born of 
sincere desire, at this special season of hope, are pathetic. 

Human nature, as represented by most of us, is weak. It 
is doubtful, however, if the chief cause of backsliding is to 
be found therein. Probably it lies in the tendency — praise- 
worthy enough in the abstract — »to resolve too much. An un- 
fortunate with a half dozen habitual vices will foreswear them 
all at once, to discover shortly, that fervent wish and effective 
will are two very different qualities. But even though he de- 
faults in every particular, it is not justification for ridicule 
nor contempt. He is a better man for having conceived an 
ideal and for his effort, however feeble, to realize it. 

The thing, then, is not to eschew New Year's Eesolutions, 
but to see to it that we keep them within reasonable bounds 
and of practical character. Those of us who are tardily com- 
batting baldness know what it is to be satisfied with modest 
results for much labor. We know the weight of hope which 
may depend from a single hair. We have the patient courage 
that wrings a crop, stalk by stalk, from a reluctant scalp. 
We are fit examples for all New Year's resolvers. 

To be entirely serious. Let us make a few sane New Year's 

79 



Resolutions, not with fanfare of trumpets, but thoughtfully, 
earnestly, determining to carry them out, to persevere despite 
discouragement and lapses. If we accomplish this, but nothing 
more, the year will be one of the most fruitful of our lives. 
RESOLVED : That I will reduce, and make an honest effort 
to gradually eradicate, the worst trait of my character. 
RESOLVED : That I will improve and ultimately overcome 
the chief weakness in my business methods. 
RESOLVED: That I will seriously consider means of turn- 
ing my time to better account and wasting less of it. 
RESOLVED: That once a day, at least, I will do or say 
something which will afford pleasure or aid to another. 
The program involves no great difficulties, but attention and 
determination will be necessary to carrying it out. During 
the first few weeks we shall frequently find ourselves slipping 
up and forgetting, but if we stick to our guns the attitude 
will soon become habitual and then there will be only the com- 
paratively easy matter of gradual accomplishment. 

THE VALUE OF TIME. 

J. Pierpont Morgan once declared that he would far rather 
have time than money. By the use of time he would not only 
make all the money he needed, but also secure a number of 
desirable, though unpurchasable things. "It has been said 
that time is money, ' ' remarks Arnold Bennett. ' l That proverb 
understates the case. Time is a great deal more than money. 
If you have time you can obtain money — usually. But though 
you have the wealth of a cloak-room attendant at the Carlton 
Hotel, you cannot buy yourself a minute more time than I 
have, or the cat by the fire has." 

Time is the most valuable of all our possessions. We enjoy 
a regular supply of it. No man has any more than another. 
Once spent, time is irrevocable. The difference in success, in 

80 



health and in happiness, between this man and that is to be 
found in their respective ways of using time. 

I wonder whether you could make an approximately correct 
statement of what you did with the 8.760 hours that were 
meted out to you last year. You had them and spent them, 
that is sure, and probably it is nearly all you know about the 
matter. At least 2500 hours should have been devoted to your 
business during the year. Have you any definite idea what 
proportion of that time was actually occupied by work? 

If a manufacturer should keep no account of consumption 
and waste he would become bankrupt in short order. Fortu- 
nately the consequence of neglect is not so dire with us. That 
is simply because, whilst the manufacturer has to pay for his 
material, we get our time for nothing. But the very fact that 
our business calls for no other investment than a few hours 
of labor daily, gives us a great advantage provided we turn 
our time to good account. 

The general misuse and waste of time are due, without 
doubt, to lack of appreciation of the true value of time and 
to ignorance of proper methods of employing it. Compara- 
tively few men in our business maintain systematic regulation 
of their working hours and hardly any exercise intelligent 
control over that much larger section of the day which is free 
from the demands of their calling. Even in the case of the 
most industrious workman, a twenty-four hours' existence does 
not seem to be justified by the useful employment of only 
one-third of the time. 

The agent who reaches the office regularly at nine o'clock 
and leaves as regularly at five may consume the interval of 
time economically or wastefully. His own opinion of the 
question is not always a safe criterion of the truth. The fact 
is that few men know how they actually spend their time. 

If the manufacturer should satisfy himself with the knowl- 
edge that certain amount of raw material went into his fac- 

81 



tory and a certain quantity of finished product came out. 
making no investigation of the intermediate processes, he 
could not have a very clear idea of the sources of profit and 
loss in his business. So with the Life Insurance agent, unless 
he keeps check in detail on the consumption of his time, he 
must be ignorant of the amount which is wasted and that 
which is turned to effective account. 

Harrington Emerson, past-master in Efficiency, says: "What 
is the money value to you of one hour a day? It will depend 
upon how you invest that hour. An hour is like a clean, white 
piece of paper — its value depends entirely upon what is done 
with it. One man rolls his bit of paper and uses it as a 
taper with which to light a cigar. Another tosses his care- 
lessly aside. Still a third man uses his slip of paper to forge 
a note or check. The poet writes a few lines of immortal 
verse upon his. An artist may paint a water color on his 
sheet of paper, make himself famous, and give pleasure to 
thousands. One man may write a genuine check for a hun- 
dred dollars on his paper, while another writes a check for a 
hundred thousand dollars. ?; 

So with an hour. It may be utterly Wasted; it may be 
turned to indifferent account; or it may be employed so that 
it will yield pleasure and profit to oneself and others. 

There is no more important matter in your life than this 
question of time. Everything else hinges on it. Without time 
you can do nothing. With it you may accomplish all that 
which is given to mortal man to do. 

The disposition of leisure hours should be considered no 
less than the disposition of business hours. The portion of 
the day which is commonly treated as il seconds, " or even 
waste material, may be made the most productive part of a 
man's life, and that without his working overtime. 

82 v 



COMPETITION. 

Competition creates business. This is a truth which the 
salesman learns only from experience. Usually he starts out 
with the idea that if he might have a ' l virgin ' ' field to browse 
in he would be in clover. If he is sent to a little-worked 
territory he finds himself in the situation of the Life Insur- 
ance agents of the early days who were really missionaries, 
carrying a strange gospel. They needed to convert and edu- 
cate a Prospect, and commonly spent from three months to a 
year in the effort to secure his application. With the growth 
of Competition, involving, as it did, the spread of information, 
the difficulties of the business decreased, whilst the demand 
for Life Insurance increased. 

In the City of New York there are said to be upwards of 
3000 men devoting their entire time to selling Life Insurance, 
and at least as many part-time agents. Despite the fact, or 
rather, largely on account of it, New York is the best Life 
Insurance territory in the world. Owing to the constant can- 
vassing most business men in the city are Prospects and, at 
all times, a large proportion of them are seriously considering 
the purchase of Life Insurance. 

The novice is super-sensitive to Competition, and disposed 
to exaggerate its importance. Although his Company has two 
hundred and odd rivals in the legal reserve ranks, it depresses 
him to learn that a prospective buyer favors one of the oth- 
ers. If he encounters the same company in competition twice 
in a month he concludes that it is doing the bulk of the busi- 
ness in his town and he begins to wish that he were working 
for it. He cannot understand that to remain in business each 
company must present some points of special attraction. He 
thinks that his own company 's policies should embrace all 
these features that act as thorns in his side. 

The beginner can't take Competition good-naturedly. It irri- 
tates him. His work is hard enough anyway, without some 

83 



other fellow butting into it. He is doing business on strictly 
honest lines, and he is quite sure that his rival is a crook. 
The Prospect who will not admit his claims for the superiority 
of his company must be influenced by some ulterior motive, and 
is probably accepting a rebate. 

To the veteran, on the other hand, Competition is the spice 
of business. It gives zest to his work. He is ever eager for 
the fray, like the warhorse champing on the bit at the sound 
of the bugle. He fully appreciates the value of Competition 
and welcomes it. "The more the merrier" is his motto. 

What has been said refers to Competition in general. It is 
of course, desirable to avoid it in particular cases. If that 
cannot be done, it should be minimized. A great deal of the 
Competition experienced is unnecessary. When a small boy is 
stung by a wasp he rubs the place until he sets up a serious 
irritation. The grown man knows better. He either ignores 
the sting, or lets it go with a dab of ammonia. At the first 
suggestion of another company the beginner gets excited and 
plunges into a hot argument. The old-hand sheds the obstacle 
as a duck sheds water. He says "very good company' ' with 
an air that implies "not to be considered a serious compet- 
itor though,' 7 and goes on with his talk. If the Prospect per- 
sists, the salesman comes back with, "The Blank Life is a 
good company. I have nothing to say against it. But I am 

selling the Life, and I'll stick to my text, if you 

please. ' ' 

Competition will occasionally be too pronounced to be ignored 
or brushed aside. In such a case, fight tooth and nail, but do 
it only on the level. In our effort to beat a competitor we 
must never forget our obligation to increase the Prospect's 
respect for the institution of Life Insurance and his apprecia- 
tion of its beneficence. 

You can't give a Prospect the impression that a certain 
company is dishonest in the treatment of its policyholders, or 

84 



that a certain agent is untrustworthy, without impairing his 
estimate of Life Insurance companies and their representa- 
tives as a whole, and, perhaps, creating suspicion in his mind 
as to you and your company. 

Don't fall into this error. Assure your man that, as an 
institution, Legal Keserve Life Insurance is sound throughout: 
that the companies operating under it are uniformly fair in 
the administration of their trust; and that their representa- 
tives, as a body, are at least the equals in integrity and effi- 
ciency of any other class of business men. 

Such an attitude is demanded by the best ethics of sales- 
manship and is calculated to inspire the confidence of your 
Prospect. 

It is seldom necessary or advisable to make a precise com- 
parison of policies. The technicalities involved in such a pro- 
ceeding are likely to befog the Prospect's mind. The tactful 
and creative salesman will prefer to meet the competition in 
a different manner. He will say something like the following: 
' ' Mr. Blank, all legal reserve companies are sound. Any one 
of them will pay your claim and give you full value for your 
money. You know that the chief difference between two shoe 
shops or two haberdashers is that one can offer you goods 
better suited to your taste than the other. So it is with the 
many excellent Life Insurance companies. One will be able 
to sell you a policy better adapted to your requirements than 
another. Now I think that we can do just that thing, and I 
believe that you will agree with me when I have described our 
contract. ' ' Then he goes on with his canvass, expatiating on 
some selling feature which his competitor's policy lacks. 

Now-a-days, manufacturers go to a great deal of pains to 
furnish their salesmen with what they call "talking points." 
Very often these are of little importance to the purchaser. 
Their value consists in the opportunity they afford the sales- 
man to enlarge on something which his competitors do not 

85 



have. This practice of providing ' ' talking points ' ' is followed 
by Life Insurance companies and each of them has one or two 
special policy features on which its agents dwell. 

The experienced Life Insurance salesman is posted on the 
specialties of his rivals. In Competition, whilst he plays on 
his own talking point, he contrives by suggestion to discount 
those of his competitor. For instance, we arouse a desire for 
the combination contract and /the total disability clause. At 
the same time we skilfully manage to instil into our Pros- 
pect's mind the idea that a second year's surrender value is 
of no consequence to him, or that a coupon policy is a delu- 
sion and a snare. 

Now, in conclusion, just a few hints as to conduct in Com- 
petition. 

Accept Competition with cheerful good humor. Readily 
concede your Prospect's right to investigate the comparative 
merits of other companies. Never display vindictiveness, nor 
speak ill of another company or agent, even though you may 
have good ground for doing so. 

Don't allow Competition to disconcert you, or make you 
over-anxious. Treat it lightly. Assume an attitude of con- 
fident assurance. Intimate that, as a shrewd and fair business 
man, your Prospect must decide in your favor. 

Appeal to any motive but friendship or charity. Be inde- 
pendent. Never ask favor, nor give the impression that you 
need it. 

If you have confidence in your company, its policies, and 
your ability in debate, the most satisfactory method of set- 
tling Competition is by inducing the Prospect to give you and 
your competitor a hearing at the same time. This reduces 
the matter to a fight in the open, and the man with the clearer 
mind and cooler head will have all the advantage. 

Take defeat philosophically and in good nature. Don't 

86 



display chagrin to your competitor or the Prospect. Even 
with the best of companies you must expect to lose in Com- 
petition sometimes. Turn your failures to account. Benefit 
by the experience and make it a source of future strength. 

STEADY EFFORT. 

In many businesses there are marked seasons of varying 
activity, due to fluctuations in demand. Some salesmen are 
compelled to work intensely hard for a few months at a stretch 
and then have practically nothing to do for a spell. These 
men may well envy the Life Insurance agent, with whom con- 
ditions are uniformly favorable, who has no off season, but 
can always find a good field for his efforts. 

We don't generally appreciate this valuable feature of our 
business, nor take full advantage of it. Production charts 
invariably exhibit pronounced curves, indicating spurts of en- 
ergy and sharp reactions. This is the case, whether the test 
be applied to the work of an agency or to that of an average 
individual. 

With the single exception of the natural dullness in the dog 
days, there is no sound reason for these variations. In fact, 
they fall short of common-sense when measured by the yard- 
stick of logic. 

Take the December business, for example. It always reaches 
the peak of production. Normally it should be one of the 
worst months of the year. The business we get then is se- 
cured under greater difficulties than usual and in shorter time. 
We get it because it has long been the custom of companies 
to put on pressure at that time and because many agents are 
then striving to make up for business which they failed to 
write, but might have written and should have written, earlier 
in the year. 

Then we have the regular January reaction. There is no 
better reason for this. It should be an excellent month for 



Life Insurance. Business men have a tendency to take on 
new obligations at the beginning of the year. They are less 
busy than in December and the successful are in receipt of 
rewards for the past year's labor, in the form of promotions, 
bonuses and increased salaries. 

Furthermore, the agent ought to be at his best in January. 
He should be alive with greater ambition, fresh enthusiasm 
and renewed energy. Instead of which, he is apt to be resting 
on his oars and eating up the profits that he made in Decem- 
ber. There are a few agents, however, who realize the big 
opportunity that January offers and who reap a rich harvest, 
largely in closing cases which have been ripened by other 
agents during the December push. 

Irregular production represents the hardest method of work- 
ing. It involves the same expenditure of surplus energy as 
does the frequent starting and stopping of a locomotive. But, 
in the case of the Life Insurance agent, it is an unnecessary 
waste of energy. He could do more with less effort by steady 
application throughout the year. He knows this to be true. 
Why he doesn't act upon the knowledge is a mystery. 

Steady effort, maintained with regularity, will result in 
steady and regular production. Your business will be con- 
stantly in a satisfactory state. You will avoid a lot of worry 
and anxiety. When you make an occasional extra effort the 
result will be velvet, instead of merely making up arrears. 

Why not try a different method in 1921? Plan the year's 
business with the idea of making a steady effort from first 
to last. Fix on a certain amount to be written every month, 
or, better still, every week. Start after your quota at once. 
It represents your minimum production, mind you. Of course 
you want to write as much as you can. If you begin imme- 
diately and work steadily through the year, you can hardly 
fail to exceed your quota considerably. 

88 



Steady effort involves something more than merely deciding 
upon definite production. You must systematize your work. 
Above all you must have a stipulated number of hours a day 
for canvassing. You should plan your entire campaign. It 
is easy to maintain steady effort when the course is clearly 
laid out before you. 

Beware of waning interest, wilting determination and the 
assaults of your chief weakness, whatever it is. After you 
have been pursuing your plan for a few weeks, enthusiasm, 
energy and your other props will begin to wobble. That will 
be the test of your backbone. If you can exert enough will 
power to carry you through that critical period, the chances 
are altogether in favor of your success. The longer you stick, 
the easier the sticking will become. 

AGENCY GBOWTH. 

A correspondent writes : ' l . . . I succeeded to the agency 
a little more than a year ago and have kept the business up 
to its former figure, but I want to make a considerable in- 
crease. In what direction do you think that I had best apjjly 
my time and money 1" 

There are two general directions in which efforts to up- 
build an agency may be applied: 1. Toward increasing the 
productiveness of the present force. 2. Toward expanding 
business by securing additions to the force. 

Limitation of resources will in most instances prevent the 
adequate exploitation of both means. The manager will gen- 
erally be compelled to specialize upon one, making the other 
distinctly subsidiary. 

Under capable direction, the former method will prove the 
more efficacious and profitable in the long run. It is also to 
be recommended on economical and ethical grounds. 

Obviously, it is more desirable to write a million of busi- 
ness with ten or a dozen men of more than average ability, 

89 



than to do so with twenty or thirty men, mostly incompetents. 
The results in one case will be obtained at considerably less 
pains and expense than in the other. 

Then, consider the by-product, so to speak. In the former 
case the agents are appreciative of the fact that their man- 
ager devotes his available time and money to their betterment. 
This induces permanent and loyal attachment to the agency. 
Individually and collectively, the force is continually undergo- 
ing improvement in efficiency. The quality of its personnel 
creates a good reputation for the agency in the community 
and automatically attracts to it recruits of a desirable class. 

Contrast such a condition with that of the agency that 
grows after the manner of the weed. It is constantly devel- 
oping new buds and branchlets, but the growth is not com- 
mensurate to the expenditure. There is no trimming nor cul- 
tivation and, as a consequence, the main stem steadily deterio- 
rates. The lack of strength, stamina and quality in offices 
of this kind become most apparent in times of depression. 
Their production falls off because their men are wanting in 
adaptability and initiative, and because of the difficuty of 
maintaining the system of making frequent additions to the 
force. 

It may be said that these statements do not apply to the 
comparatively few agencies which enjoy the facilities for con- 
stant numerical expansion, coupled with adequate training of 
new men. 

My correspondent has an agency which, with twenty-eight 
salesmen, last year paid for approximately two millions of 
business. In my opinion it will be more profitable for him, 
in the long run, to increase the production during the current 
year by twenty-five per cent with his present force than to 
pay for three millions with double the number of men. In the 
former case he may count on acquiring Hve or six promising 
agents without extraordinary effort. 

90 



THE MENTAL ATTITUDE. 

The work of coaching agents individually has brought to 
my knowledge a number of important facts that are likely to 
escape notice in handling agents collectively. Nothing in this 
connection has surprised me more than the disclosure that a 
large proportion of Life Insurance salesmen lack a proper 
mental attitude toward their business. This deficiency is 
found in all classes — the successful and the failures; the inex- 
perienced and veterans. The condition ranges in degree from 
downright dislike for the business to indifference toward it, 
except as a means of making money. 

It is essential for success in any kind of endeavor that a 
man shall have his head and his heart in it. By sheer 
ability he may achieve considerable success without the aid 
of the latter factor, but his accomplishment must fall far 
short of what it would be if he loved his work and was proud 
of his calling. 

Experience has led me to the conviction that, for the most 
part, this absence of the right mental attitude is due to igno- 
rance or thoughtlessness. My observation has embraced not 
a few men with natural talent and liking for salesmanship 
who were either oblivious to the economic and social benefi- 
cence of Life Insurance, or unappreciative of it. "When such 
agents are induced to consider their business in its broader 
aspects the invariable result is larger production, greater con- 
tentment and enhanced ambition. In some instances this 
mental reform alone has been the means of quickly turning 
long-continued failure into permanent success. 

This is a point worthy of the practical attention of man- 
agers. It is a common experience with all of us to have a 
man falling far short of the production which his evident 
ability would indicate. The investigation of his failure should 
never omit a scrutiny of his mental attitude toward the busi- 

91 



ness. Not infrequently this will lead to the sole source of the 
trouble. 

But this is not a matter entirely of individual treatment, 
nor one which should be considered merely in its curative rela- 
tions. A proper mental attitude toward Life Insurance as an 
institution may be made one of the most potent factors in 
developing the efficiency of an agency. It should be the sub- 
ject of careful thought and intelligent application by a man 
who is himself thoroughly imbued with the idea that his voca- 
tion is as noble and beneficent as any on earth. Instead of 
devoting agency meetings exclusively to the 'discussion of tech- 
nicalities and the science of salesmanship, the subject for con- 
sideration should be, at frequent intervals, the economic and 
social effects of Life Insurance, as well as its history and evo- 
lution. Almost unlimited material of an interesting and in- 
structive character is available for such talks, and the news 
organs constantly contain items which afford pointed and prac- 
tical illustrations. 

CUEING COMMON FAILINGS. 

i( Enjoy the present and quite distrust the future/ ' There's 
a bit of Horatian philosophy for you. I don't quite like it 
myself. It smacks a little too much of the Epicurean advice: 
"Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow ye die." Still, it 
is worth considering and, perhaps, we can extract something 
of practical value from it. 

The injunction to "enjoy the present' ' is sound enough, 
especially inasmuch as it conveys by implication the advice 
to forget yesterday. Life is such a very inefficient and un- 
successful performance, at the best, that there is little pleasure 
to be got out of a survey of the past. Then again, if we are 
really bent on living to the utmost of our ability, enjoying 
the present means, getting the maximum of good from it and 
that can only be done by concentrating on it and excluding 

92 



distracting thoughts of what has been and what may be to 
eome. As Kipling puts it, you must 

"fill the unforgiving minute with 
sixty seconds worth of distance run." 

Horace was not a pessimist, by any means, and, although 
a literal translation of his language is "quite distrust the 
morrow," I am inclined to believe that his intent was to warn 
against "banking" on the future. Bead as a protest against 
Micawberism, the line is much to the point. 

It is not improbable that the poet had in mind two com- 
mon types of frail humanity — the ghoul who is forever fat- 
tening on the carcasses of dead and decomposed events, and 
the lily of the field sort, the hair-brained, happy-go-lucky in- 
dividual who looks to Providence to work some such miracle 
in his behalf as that in which Elisha — or was it Elijah? — 
figured as beneficiary and the ravens as the medium. 

We are all familiar with those types as agents. We know 
the fellow who seems to find a crucificial delight in dwelling 
upon his latest rejection. Who, if you are supine enough to 
submit to the infliction, will pour the doleful tale into your 
ear ad nauseam. Failing an audience, he will sit at his desk 
and mope until the last atom of his scanty stock of "pep" 
has oozed away and his punch is about as effective as a rubber 
knocker on an iron door. Don't encourage such a man with 
sympathy. It's false kindness. Advise him to go into the 
alley and hire a drayman to kick him. If you really want to 
help, lend him the money to secure the service. 

And the other kind. He is just as futile, but not so de- 
testable. Indeed, as often as not, he's a rather likable chap. 
You can't help admiiing his robust optimism, the supreme 
confidence with which he trusts to luck, and the childlike in- 
souciance with which he ignores all claims of responsibility. 
"To Hades with yesterday," says he. "Enjoy today and 
just watch tomorrow come through with the jam tarts. I 



should worry ! ' ' Don *t take the trouble to argue with him. 
He is incapable of being diverted from the course of his 
trivial career. If experience fails to teach, no other mentor 
stands a ghost of a chance. 

Now this is not written with any hopeless desire to change 
the leopard ? s spots. I have animals of another species in 
mind, ourselves to wit. Despite the fact that we are fairly 
well ballasted, there 's quite apt to be a streak of one or the 
other of the forms of insanity under discussion in our tem- 
peraments. We are too sensible to go to extremes but, if the 
truth be told, there are times when each of us loses his bal- 
ance to a deplorable extent. 

Even you, my friend, the Star Producer of your agency 
who would be ashamed to rehearse your troubles in the agents' 
room — even you consort with the Gloom Imp on occasion. It 
is true, you rarely go beyond entertaining him over night. 
With the opening of a new day you generally kick the dis- 
gusting intruder out and resume your normal senses. But 
why any lapse from sanity? You realize the futility of it as 
well as any one. When you allow yourself to remain "blue" 
for longer than fifteen minutes, you can find but one valid 
excuse — a disordered liver. 

I wonder whether you have ever read that wonderful little 
book "The Magic Story?" If so, you know what I mean 
by saying that the Gloom Imp and all his kin, the dwarf 
thoughts, the ugly sentiments, are one and all forms assumed 
by your "minus entity. " They are a sneaking lot, given to 
creeping up behind your back and taking you unawares. We 
can never enjoy immunity from their attacks, but we may 
easily get rid of them. They are as cowardly as they are 
mean. A determined "Get out, you little devil!" will put 
any one of them to flight. Even more efficacious is it to 
laugh at these villainous little pests. They can't stand ridi- 
cule. A touch of humor is like a dab of vitriol to them. 

94 



The remedy is simple. The important thing is to apply it 
promptly. Don't temporize. Just as soon as you become 
aware of the presence of one of these insidious vermin, turn 
it out. You'll find it easy enough. Try it the next time oc- 
casion arises. 

Now, my friend, we'll pass on to another of your failings. 
Not so bad this as sulking or giving way to the ct blues," but 
hardly less wasteful. I have in mind that tendency of yours 
to let up after you have closed a big case. Therein you re- 
semble the lily of the field whom we have been holding up to 
scorn. I don't mean to say that you would ever go to the 
ridiculous length of depending on luck. But you must confess 
that a good stroke of business is apt to lull you to ease and 
that, in spite of your experience to the contrary, you will 
allow the optimistic belief that plums are plentiful to take 
possesion of you. 

The time that is lost while you rest on your oars in the 
enjoyment of past success is not the worst phase of the mat- 
ter, though it is bad enough in all conscience. Far more de- 
plorable is the loss of momentum, the dulling of the fire of 
enthusism. When you have just taken an application you are 
in the best condition for getting another one. Then is the 
time to be as busy as you know how and to keep the streak 
up as long as you can. 

But, of course, you know all this perfectly well. You in- 
dulge your wasteful weakness, nevertheless. The point is how 
to overcome it. The simplest way would be to determine oh 
reform, but somehow few of us find the direct method easiest. 
Let me suggest a scheme which was adopted with highly satis- 
factory results by a large producer who had been addicted to 
letting up whenever he landed a large case. He formed a res- 
olution that, having secured an application, he would not go 
to the office before five o'clock. Absurdly simple, no doubt, 

95 



but so are the majority of effective processes. Apply that 
rule to your own business and see how well it will work. 

PLANS. 

It is obvious that without a plan of some sort no achieve- 
ment is possible. A purpose necessarily entails a plan, though 
it be but a hazy one. 

Harrington Emerson has declared that lack of planning is 
the chief weakness of American business men. No one fa- 
miliar with the practices of Life Insurance salesmen will deny 
that this criticism is true of them. The typical Life Insur- 
ance agent works without adequate plan as to the future, as 
to the present day, or as to the immediate case. In short, his 
methods are haphazard. 

I am using the word "plan" to signify the conception of 
a definite course of action laid along practical lines. In this 
sense planning is exceptional among Life Insurance salesmen. 
Nevertheless, systematic labor and the most effective effort 
are possible only as a consequence of premeditation. If a 
man does a thing in the best way without having given any 
previous thought to the manner of doing it, he is the benefi- 
ciary of sheer accident — and it will not occur often. 

The secret of efficient Planning is the formation of a habit 
and its application to the minor matters of life — private as 
well as business. The man who habitually Plans in small 
affairs will not fail to prepare for the performance of im- 
portant tasks. 

Observe the course of an agent's work through a single 
day, as I have done frequently, and it will be seen that its 
progress is broken time and again by the consequence of fail- 
ure to plan details. He starts out with the intention of doing 
certain things and the close of the day finds, perhaps, one- 
half of them done. Now his design is obstructed by neglect 
to have provided himself with a necessary document. Again 

96 



his program is changed by the discovery of a fact that he 
might have ascertained beforehand. And so it goes through 
a disorderly seven or eight hours, with waste of time and 
energy. But the worst consequence of this sort of thing is 
the detrimental mental effect, and the resultant habit of floun- 
dering haphazard through the day's work. All of which 
might be avoided by the devotion regularly of one hour each 
day to the planning of the tasks for the next. 

A dependable habit of planning can best be formed by be- 
ginning with the private affairs of everyday life which have a 
closer connection with vocational activities than is generally 
realized. It may not matter much whether or not you glance 
round the bathroom before going to bed in order to be sure 
that everything is ready for your morning toilet, but the prac- 
tice of doing so will foster the habit of orderliness. Then, 
again, the ultimate effect of some trivial incident is often 
much greater than could possibly be anticipated. You slip 
out of a cold bath to find your towel missing and spend a 
shivery five minutes in securing a fresh one. Chilled and irri- 
tated, you go to breakfast. Some petty occurrence, which 
would not ordinarily have affected you, now makes you savage. 
You go to work thoroughly upset and lose an important case 
in consequence. George Sims, I believe it is, has a story which 
begins with a stale egg and ends with a murder. 

The singular lack of Planning in the work of Life Insurance 
salesmen in general probably accounts for a loss of fifty per 
cent in production. That is to say, that with intelligent Plans, 
effectively carried out, the same degree of effort would yield 
the average agent half as much business again. I am ac- 
quainted with a salesman who, despite almost complete neg- 
lect of systematic Planning, pays for $750,000 or more of 
insurance every year by reason of extraordinary ability. There 
is not the least doubt but that this man, regulating his work 
by systematic Plan, would double his production. 

97 



The majority of Life Insurance salesmen set themselves a 
quota of business for the year. Very few, however, Plan ways 
and means of fulfillment. If the agent would devise a clear- 
cut Plan, thought out in all its details, for the performance of 
his task, it would be achieved with comparative ease. All ac- 
tion originates in the mind. Clear conception must precede 
complete realization. The agent who starts the year with its 
work deliberately Planned as to the business to be written, 
the class of Prospects to be canvassed, the methods to be em- 
ployed, and so forth, brings an orderly mind to bear on organ- 
ized effort. He has a well-defined idea of what he purposes 
to do and how he will do it. By Planning in advance for the 
interviews and other details of each day's work he reduces 
effort to smooth action, completely under control. 

The Life Insurance salesman who looks upon his business 
as a permanent vocation will derive benefit from Planning 
for the distant future. An ambitious purpose will furnish him 
with incentive for exertion and keep his interest alive. Indeed, 
the man who has no greater object than the mere earning of 
commissions will not get very far. 

PERSONAL EFFICIENCY AND SALESMANSHIP. 

Salesmanship is a fundamental factor in business success. 
Without its exercise no considerable achievement is possible. 
Everyone in active life has something to sell — knowledge, 
service or material. 

Salesmanship may be described as the art of creating in the 
mind of another a desire for something which one has to dis- 
pose of. Consciously or sub-consciously we are all practicing 
this art constantly and with varying effect. 

The success of a sales effort is not solely dependent upon 
the merit of the thing offered and the technical skill of the 
salesman. A far from negligible element in the transaction 
is a subtle influence which emanates from the seller as a man, 



and excites a disposition on the part of the prospective pur- 
chaser to deal with Mm. 

This indefinable power of attraction is commonly called 
Magnetism. It roots in Personality and furnishes an equation 
in the process of a sale which is rarely appreciated at its full 
value. Nevertheless, illustrations of its operation are pre- 
sented to us on every hand. 

A dozen men apply for a position and the selection is in- 
fluenced as much by prepossessing appearance, pleasing ad- 
dress or convincing statement, as by test of ability. In every 
populous community are physicians enjoying lucrative prac- 
tices, whilst others of greater professional ability are barely 
making their living. We can readily recall instances of law- 
yers gaining wealth and distinction, less on account of their 
talents than because of a facility for making friends and 
after-dinner speeches. 

In these cases success is due to Salesmanship — the faculty 
of creating a desire for something which one has to dispose 
of — but the personal equation is the predominant factor in 
the result. The same condition is frequently found in voca- 
tional Salesmanship. We all know Life Insurance agents who 
do a substantial business almost solely by reason of their per- 
sonality. 

Some men are naturally magnetic. They possess innate 
traits which form attractive personality. But it is within the 
power of any man to acquire Magnetism by the cultivation 
of certain qualities. These are neither more nor less than 
the elements of Personal Efficiency. In other words, the man 
who is personally efficient is necessarily magnetic. 

I am dwelling on this thought because it involves a truth 
which has been overlooked or slighted in the formulation of 
every system for the education of salesmen. Sales-man is a 
compound, of which MAN is the more important element. In 
order to make an efficient salesman we must have an efficient 

99 



man as a basis. This is an essential condition and the pro- 
duction of it is logically the first part of our task. 

Failure to recognize this truth is the cause of great wastage 
in our business — and in every other for that matter. Every 
manager is familiar with the type of agent who apparently 
possesses all the qualifications for success, but fails to "deliver 
the goods. " Intelligent investigation would show, in nearly 
all such cases, that the source of the difficulty was personal 
inefficiency — some defect or weakness in the man which re- 
acted upon the salesman, as it must inevitably. 

So that our primary concern should be Personality, that is 
to say, the sum of the traits — physical, mental and spiritual — 
which go to make up the character of the individual. 

Efficiency is simply an adequate condition of being and 
doing. This condition in the ordinary affairs or life I term 
Personal Efficiency, in contradistinction to Vocational Effi- 
ciency, which is adequacy in the field of business activity. 

The effort for self -improvement involved in the pursuit of 
Personal Efficiency is calculated to stimulate qualities and 
faculties which must have a favorable influence upon an 
agent's work and increase interest in it. Instances are nu- 
merous where instruction in Personal Efficiency has followed 
a technical course and resulted in much greater business pro- 
duction than did the former. 

Personal Efficiency and Vocational Efficiency are insepara- 
ble. Both are resultants of the same principles and one is the 
inevitable consequence of the other. 

The man who is personally efficient may readily become effi- 
cient in his business. All else he needs for success is purely 
technical knowledge, which is comparatively easy of acquisi- 
tion. The effective application of that knowledge in practical 
directions is a product of his Personal Efficiency. 

It goes without saying that the ideal to be striven for is a 

100 



combination of technical knowledge and practical ability, with 
Personal Efficiency. 

Why is $100,000 of paid-for business a year in excess of the 
average among the thousands of men who are devoting all their 
time and energies to the sale of Life Insurance? 

Doubtless several causes contribute to this strange condi- 
tion. Whatever they be, lack of potential ability cannot be 
one of them. Want of systematic education and training is a 
heavy handicap to most but, despite of it, any healthy and 
intelligent man should be able to pay for, at least, $100,000 
in twelve months. 

Extensive observation has convinced me that the chief cause 
of the remarkably small average production of Life Insurance 
agents is to be found in decline of interest in their business. 
The average agent makes greater effort to learn during the 
first year of his service than ever after. He reaches the peak 
of his production in two or three years' time, and then follows 
stagnation, unless, indeed, he retrogrades, as is too often the 
case. 

The high point of production, reached as a result of the 
early years of study of the business and enthusiastic applica- 
tion to work, should be but the first stage on the road of con- 
stant improvement. Arid such would be the case, to a consid- 
erable extent, at least, if agents should be afforded adequate 
assistance and encouragement to cultivate increased efficiency. 

Give the agent facilities for acquiring a sound knowledge 
of the science of Life Insurance and of the theory of Life In- 
surance Salesmanship and you may confidently look for cer- 
tain results. Increased knowledge and efficiency must be fol- 
lowed by increased business. This will lead to desire for still 
greater improvement. Interest cannot fail to be an accom- 
paniment of these conditions. 

101 



PEEPAEATION. 

If we look around us in the business world we shall perceive 
that the men who succeed are the men who have Prepared 
themselves for success. The man who has Prepared for the 
opportunity is able to take advantage of it. The man who 
has Prepared to fill the vacancy secures promotion. As it is 
with the larger issues of life, so with the smaller affairs of 
the daily routine. The man who has Prepared for his tasks 
necessarily performs them more efficiently than if he had not 
done so. 

It is difficult to understand why Life Insurance salesmen 
are so remiss in this respect. The lawyer would not approach 
the bar without having studied his brief. The minister would 
not enter the pulpit without having thought out his sermon. 
The surgeon would not operate without having examined the 
patient. The work of none of these is more important than 
the work of the Life Insurance agent, who frequently has to 
deal with the greatest and most far-reaching interests. But, 
aside from that, which is the ethical view of the matter, the 
agent's welfare and success depend upon his efficiency, and 
nothing will promote that as much as will Preparation. 

I cannot urge upon you too strongly the value of specific 
Preparation for your canvasses. It is safe to assume that 
seven of every ten canvasses are entered upon under the most 
unfavorable conditions for the agents, because he has failed 
to Prepare for the occasion. In a great majority of instances 
you do not give any thought to what you are going to say 
until the moment arrives for saying it. Under these circum- 
stances you do injustice to yourself, to your company and to 
your Prospect. When you call upon a stranger knowing noth- 
ing about his affairs and having no prearranged plan for in- 
teresting him you handicap yourself heavily. Naturally enough, 
the result is seldom satisfactory. 

102 



I suppose that if you make one close in fifteen attempts, 
you consider that you are doing fairly well. I have said more 
than once, and I repeat with conviction, that a Life Insurance 
solicitor may so order his work that he will close once in three 
times that he tries to do so. But, understand me, I have in 
mind such a system and such a Preparation that the agent 
will not attempt to close unless conditions are favorable to 
the effort. There are not a few men who excel the average I 
have mentioned, year in and year out. Indeed, many writers 
close the majority of their cases on the first interview. 

Nor is this so very remarkable. It is the logical conse- 
quence of intelligent method and forethought. They do not 
work directly upon a man until after they have learned his 
circumstances, know that he is able to pay for insurance and 
the purposes for which he needs it. "Why should not they 
close nearly every time? Don't you see that when a man 
fails to close under such conditions it is extraordinary? 

Ability and efficiency are far from being the same thing. 
With men, as with machines, there is frequently a wide differ- 
ence between the potential and the practical efficiency. We 
fall far short of possible accomplishment because we fail to 
turn our talents to full account. There are first class solicitors 
among us who miss much of their opportunity for writing 
business by reason of neglect in this matter of Preparation 
for canvasses. They are only half primed when they go out 
on the street to work and, of course, the result is that they 
only secure half the results that their efforts might be made 
to produce. 

It is frequently said, with truth, that an agent may surely 
double his production by increasing the number of his daily 
calls. It is equally certain that many agents might increase 
their production by decreasing their daily calls and making 
proper Preparation for their interviews. A judicious admix- 

103 



ture of physical and mental effort will produce results that 
cannot be obtained by any amount of mere pavement pounding. 

If such a system of work will double your applications, as 
I confidently believe that it will, you should be willing to take 
any amount of trouble in the matter. A whole day devoted 
to securing necessary information in a $5000 case would be 
well spent. Having got the data, sit down and think over it 
carefully. Weigh the circumstances and decide intelligently 
on a form of contract to present to your Prospect. The rea- 
sons that guide you in your selection will afford good argu- 
ments to advance for his acceptance of your proposition. 

Take time to write out your canvass. Until you have be- 
come thoroughly posted on all the standard forms of policies 
and have your mind stocked with skeleton presentations apply- 
ing to each, it is advisable to put the entire canvass on paper. 
Later on you will find it sufficient to make brief memoranda. 

It is excellent practice for a beginner to write out a can- 
vass — policy, presentation and argument, — word for word, 
even though doing so necessitates covering twenty-four sheets 
of paper. Then let him go over it, eliminating and condensing 
until he has reduced it to eighteen sheets; then repeat the 
process, bring it down to twelve, and finally to six sheets. It 
would take a day to do this properly, but at the end of it 
you would know how to present the policy in question and 
would have acquired the knowledge for all time. 

You cannot find more valuable practice than that which I 
have described. It is the best way of arriving at conciseness 
and clarity of expression on any subject. If you would learn 
to voice your thoughts lucidly and tersely you cannot employ 
a surer method than that of writing copiously, then reducing 
and reducing, with the idea that you will not lose an essen- 
tial thought and at the same time will not use an unnecessary 
word. 

It should not be objected that such a method involves the 

104 



expenditure of too much time and trouble. The agent who 
takes his business seriously, with an earnest determination to 
succeed, will not begrudge any labor or sacrifice for the pur- 
pose of enhancing his efficiency. Five or six hours borrowed 
from the leisure evenings of a week will result in a wonderful 
improvement at the end of a year. The beginner, in particu- 
lar, could not make any other investment of time which would 
yield as rich returns. 

THE FALLACY OF FIGURES. 

"FIGURES CAN'T LIE,"— but they can prevaricate most 
amazingly. Indeed, there is no more effective medium for 
deception. A row of numerals is convincingly unequivocal in 
appearance, — has, in fact, the very similitude of naked truth. 
But it is rarely safe to accept its statement at face value, 
even though it refers to nothing more complex than your 
laundry list. 

The following advertisement, which recently appeared in a 
daily newspaper, affords an illustration in point: 

"Of all nations, the people of the United States are the 
least saving. Nearest us in this particular is a nation whose 
savings depositors number more than twice as many as ours, 
while the most has over five money-saving citizens to our 
one." 

The table below shows the number of people out of every 
thousand in the following countries who are savings deposi- 
tors: 

Switzerland 554 

Denmark 442 

Norway 415 

Sweden 404 

Belgium 397 

New Zealand 360 

105 



France 346 

Holland 325 

Germany 317 

England 302 

Australia 300 

Tasmania 280 

Japan 270 

Italy 220 

United States 99 

The logical corollary to this statement is that there are 
more paupers in the United States than in any other coun- 
try, but as a matter of fact, there are fewer. As school boys, 
old Jevons warned us that when a sound deduction led to an 
untruth the premises must be false. In this case, the figures 
are all right, but the inferential conclusion is all wrong. 

In this country numerous commercial accounts are car- 
ried where the corresponding class abroad has small savings 
deposits and these in a large proportion of cases represent 
the sole resources of families. American storekeepers are 
merchants to a greater degree than the storekeepers of any 
other nation. American artisans are master mechanics to 
greater extent than those among any other people. Ameri- 
can farmers are proprietors in comparatively greater num- 
bers than the farmers of any other land. 

But the explanation goes much farther than this. In the 
United States more life insurance is carried by a large 
amount than in all other countries combined which are in- 
cluded in the above list. And this is the best possible form 
of saving combined with future provision for dependents. It 
is the method favored by Americans above all other methods. 

Now, we must not allow this argument to extricate U3 
from one fallacy only to lead us into another. It is quite 
true that we are less thrifty than other nations. Considering 
our purchasing power we are greatly underinsured as a peo- 

106 



pie and especially in respect to our middle class. Consider- 
ing our capacity for surplus earning we should have ten times 
our present savings accounts. Whilst our industrial processes 
are the most economical in the world, our social habits are 
the most wasteful. 

Three-fourths of the families of America might reduce 
their living expenses by one-tenth without the least discom- 
fort or curtailment of happiness. Such a saving would work 
a revolution in our national welfare within a generation. 



107 



THE LINDSAY SYSTEM 
WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT DOES 

The Lindsay System is a Course of Instruction in Life In- 
surance Salesmanship. It has stood the test of application 
to more than 4,000 agents. Companies, agency officials, man- 
agers, and field men, by hundreds, have strongly endorsed it. 

The Lindsay System is intensely practical. It has been 
rewritten time and again, with a view to excluding super- 
fluities. It has been pared and trimmed in order to reduce 
technicalities to the limits of actual utility. Every sentence 
was composed with the thought in the author's mind: "Can 
this be turned to account in the agent's work?" 

A general defect in the educational methods of our busi- 
ness has been failure to take adequate concern for the raw 
material. The results have been similar to those which would 
be experienced by a manufacturer who should have no re- 
gard for the character or quality of fabrics consumed in his 
factory. 

The Lindsay System is original in that it stresses the de- 
velopment of an efficient man as the essential basis for an 
efficient Salesman. The technicalities and principles of Life 
Insurance are fully covered, but the agent is also taught 
how to cultivate the personal qualities, without which he 
cannot effectively apply technical knowledge and ability. 

Today, Life Insurance Salesmanship is recognized as a 
highly specialized business and one in which no considerable 
degree of success can be obtained without technical know- 
ledge and attractive personality. The agent who would ad- 
vance beyond mediocrity must possess these essentials. No 
other qualities, conditions or advantages will compensate for 
the lack of them. 

Some agents have a fair amount of technical know- 
ledge which has been picked up piecemeal in the course of 
long service, but it is necessarily faulty and incomplete. A 
passable degree of expert 3kill may be secured by expe- 
rience, although, at best, it is unscientific and slowly ac- 
quired. Many men are naturally endowed with attractive 

108 



personality which, however, is seldom free from flaws, un- 
less it has been perfected by cultivation. 

Training and instruction are the short cuts and the only 
sure routes to attainment of technical knowledge, expert 
skill and attractive personality. The Lindsay System of 
Life Insurance Salesmanship is designed to produce the con- 
ditions in question and can not fail to accomplish the ob- 
ject — provided the student does his part. The instruction em- 
braces personal efficiency, the fundamental technicalities of 
our business and the theory of scientific salesmanship. The 
training consists of the application of the principles and di- 
rections advanced. 

What is Salesmanship? Nothing more than the art of cre- 
ating in the mind of another a desire for something one has 
to dispose of. 

The essence of salesmanship is then, the creation of De- 
sire. How is this to be accomplished? By persuasion; that 
is by influence. There are two methods of exercising per- 
suasion. They are Argument and Suggestion, — overt appeal 
to reason and subtle excitement of favorable thoughts and 
feelings. 

There, in brief, is the sum and substance of the sales- 
man's work. Every case he canvasses will involve dis- 
tinctly peculiar factors, but, in the final analysis, success will 
always depend upon the creation of desire by means of per- 
suasion and through the medium of argument or suggestion, 
generally both. 

The chief requirement of salesmanship is exercise of the 
faculty of persuasion. If the salesman does not possess it 
in adequate degree, its cultivation should be his principal 
object. How is he going to attain it? By the development 
of an ideal personality, to be sure. That is the all-important 
consideration and the essential basis of salesmanship ability. 
The manner of man he is must determine the degree of suc- 
cess he will have. Let him acquire personal efficiency and 
the rest will be mere child's play. 

The possession of attractive personal qualities manifests 
in that indefinable power we call Magnetism. A fortunate 
few are naturally magnetic, but it is within the power of 
any man to acquire magnetism by the cultivation of char- 
acter. It is not merely pleasing personality that we have in 

109 



mind, but also the more serviceable and admirable traits 
such as courage, poise, forcefulness and so forth. The per- 
sonally efficient man will not lack the power of persuasion. 

This is the big thing — the sine qua non — but it does not 
exhaust the requirement. The salesman will need to turn 
his personal qualities to effective account. And this he may 
do by making them the medium for the practice of the prin- 
ciples of salesmanship. Study and exercise in the science 
of selling, coincidently with the cultivation of personality, 
will develop the practical ability to create Desire. 

The Lindsay System will enable a man to get down to 
innate sources of power. It gives directions and exercises 
for the development of Efficiency, which is simply Eight 
Thinking, Eight Being, and Eight Doing. Under the divi- 
sions of Mental Efficiency, Physical Efficiency and Func- 
tional Efficiency, the System affords practical instruction in 
the cultivation of Ideal Personality. 

In the second section of this Course will be found all the 
knowledge of Life Insurance that the salesman needs in or- 
der to write it intelligently. This is coupled with directions 
for the most effective performance of every phase of the 
work. Thus, the System provides for the acquisition of per- 
sonality, knowledge and skill. The balanced combination of 
these makes the ideal salesman. 

The benefits obtainable from this Course are not to be ex- 
pected without intelligent effort. Like everything worth 
while, efficiency must be paid for by hard work and per- 
sistent endeavor. The best results will be secured by sys- 
tematic study. Certain hours of two or three evenings of 
each week should be regularly devoted to the purpose. In 
order to insure the desired effect the lessons should be read 
and re-read until their contents are thoroughly absorbed. 
Every time that a paper is reviewed it will reveal new 
angles and suggest new ideas. 

The all-important matter is the application of the theory. 
Every principle advanced and every direction given in the 
lessons should be put to practical test as often as possible. 
Daily work and leisure hours will afford constant oppor- 
tunities for these exercises, which constitute training. 

Any agent who will faithfully follow the System and per- 
sistently practice the directions cannot fail to increase his 

110 



production substantially in a few months. This is not mere 
surmise, but a matter of fact. Scores have testified to more 
than doubled business capacity as a consequence of studying 
this Course. 

CONTENTS OF THE COURSE 

Introduction, describing the System and the Methods eifl 
ployed. 



Lesson 
Lesson 
Lesson 
Lesson 
Lesson 
Lesson 


1 
2 
3 
4 
5 
6 


Lesson 7 
Lesson 8 
Lesson 9 
Lesson 10 


Lesson 11 
Lesson 12 
Lesson 13 



SECTION ONE 

Mental Efficiency 

Suggestion — Auto-Suggestion. 
Will — Perseverance — Concentration. 
Fear — Timidity — Worry. 
Cheerfulness — Sociability. 
Poise — Observation— Memory. 
Purpose — Ambition — Ideals. 

Physical Efficiency 

Various Phases of Hygiene. 
Food — Diet Regulation. 
Exercise — Recreation. 
Rest — Relaxation. 

Functional Efficiency 

Time Consumption. 

Records — Plans. 

Scheduling — Despatching — Standardizing. 



Lesson 


1. 


Lesson 


2. 


Lesson 


3. 


Lesson 


4. 


Lesson 


5. 



SECTION TWO 

Fundamental Knowledge 

History of Life Insurance. 

Systems of Life Insurance — Legal Reserve. 

Systems of Life Insurance — Assessment. 

Elements of Life Insurance. 

Forms of Life Insurance. 



ill 



Salesmanship 



Lesson 6. 


Prospects. 


Lesson 7. 


Pre-approach — Preparation. 


Lesson 8. 


Approach— Creating Interest. 


Lesson 9. 


Presentation. 


Lesson 10. 


Close. 


Lesson 11. 


Practical Psychology. 


Lesson 12. 


Standard Methods. 


Lesson 13. 


Business Insurance. 



Quiz Papers and Examinations Tests. Certificates, etc. 

The Course is printed on loose leaves, suitable for insertion 
in a binder, so as to admit of revisions and the addition of 
papers which will be issued from time to time. 

The following are a few expressions from the hundreds in 
our possession. Names and addresses of any of the writers 
will be furnished on application. 

' 1 1 have gained new ideas and have a better system of get- 
ting Prospects. Formerly I seldom closed on first interview. 
Saturday I wrote three applications, all on the first inter- 
view." B. A. O'K. 

"The Prospect stated that he had all the insurance he 
wanted. I used the reply suggested in the lesson. I got the 
application." G-. D. F. 

"I am more sure of myself and feel greater strength from 
a sense of being competent. For the first fifteen days of this 
month I have written $34,500 of business. > ' H. W. S. 

"Look at the record. More than twice as much written 
in the six months since I finished the course than in any six 
months before. " F. S. L. 

"It has turned me from a poor part time man into a pret- 
ty good full timer — $23,750 paid for last month and going 
to do better next." E. A. McA. 

"I have read the Lessons over several times and each time 
I find something new in them. The Course is a never-end- 
ing stimulus and aid." E. P. O. 

"I fail to understand how anyone can read these papers 
without being filled with unlimited energy and enthusiasm 
for his work. Every time I read one I get a fresh supply 
of pep." C. H. H. 

112 



1 1 Taking the Course after seven years of indifferent re- 
sults, I find first, that I had a lot of latent ability which 
I wasn ' t using and, second, that my methods had been waste- 
ful of energy and badly directed. Now I know how to go 
about my work in an expert manner and make every effort 
tell. My business has increased a hundred per cent, at least. ' ' 

G. D. 

"Most of my men have taken your Course and, as a re- 
sult, the business of the Agency has increased greatly and the 
morale of the force is much improved. You are doing a 
wonderful work." P. I. M. 

Some of the Companies using the Lindsay System: 
National Life Insurance Co., Montpelier, Vt. 
State Mutual Life Insurance Co., Worcester, Mass. 
Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Co., Los Angeles, Cal. 
Occidental Life Insurance Co., Los Angeles, Cal. 
Sun Life Assurance Co., Montreal, Canada. 
Peoria Life Insurance Co., Peoria, 111. 
Ohio National Life Insurance Co., Cincinnati, Ohio. 
Central Life Insurance Co., Crawfordsville, Ind. 
Standard Life Insurance Co., Decatur, 111. 
Illinois Life Insurance Co., Chicago, 111. 
Federal Life Insurance Co., Chicago, 111. 
Iowa Life Insurance Co., Waterloo, Iowa. 
Equitable Life Insurance Co., Des Moines, Iowa. 
Northern Life Assurance Co., London, Canada. 
Great West Life Assurance Co., Winnipeg, Canada. 
Mutual Life Insurance Co., (Chicago Agency). 
Provident Life & Trust Co., (New York Agency). 
George Washington Life Insurance Co., Charleston, W. Va. 
West Coast Life Insurance Co., San Francisco, Cal. 
Minnesota Mutual Life Insurance Co., St. Paul, Minn. 
Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. (Canadian Agencies.) 
Individuals taking this Course enjoy the benefit of per- 
sonal supervision and direction by Mr. Forbes Lindsay. 
Managers may secure clubbing rates for their agents. 
Terms and further particulars on application. 

FOEBES LINDSAY SALES SEEVICE, 

San Gabriel, California. 

113 



To Home Office Executives 
and Agency Managers 



We are prepared to furnish a 
variety of services in connec- 
tion witk field administration 
and operation. Correspond- 
ence is invited. 



FORBES LINDSAY SALES SERVICE 

SAM GABRIEL, CALIF. 



Life Insurance salesmanship 



BY 

FORBES LINDSAY 



Practical information and directions relating 
to me principal phases of me Life Insurance 
agent's work. 

This book furnishes me beginner wim ex- 
actly me aid he needs. Experienced salesmen 
will find that it enables mem to strengthen 
and systematize meir methods. To managers 
and superintendents it supplies the best kind 
of material for discussion at agency meetings. 
The volume is recommended as an effective in- 
troduction to me study of me Lindsay System 
of instruction in Life Insurance Salesmanship. 

PRICE POSTPAID $3.00 

Life Insurance Salesmanship and The Day's 
Work in combination $4.00. 



FORBES LINDSAY SALES SERVICE 

SAN GABRIEL, CALIF. 



WE GET RESULTS 



Tke Forbes Lindsay Sales Service is prepared to 
co-operate with companies and agencies in various 
ways. The following are some of the services xtfhich 
Mr. Forbes Lindsay is performing with the utmost satis- 
faction to the patrons concerned. 

Acting as Business Counselor for several 

companies, advising on organization and operation of field 
forces, planning sales campaigns, furnishing information 
and discharging numerous tasks of a similar character. 

Writing pamphlets and literature for a 

variety of purposes, preparing copy for advertisements 
and circular letters, contributing to company organs and 
making addresses at agency conventions. 

Supplying a " Weekly Service" of letters 

and talks for the use of general agencies? and a "Monthly 
Service" for agency executives and managers. 

We are equipped to meet any demand for service 
in connection with the producing branch of the Life 
Insurance business. 

FORBES LINDSAY SALES SERVICE 

SAN GABRIEL, CALIFORNIA 






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